User:Magentic Manifestations/sandbox/Major issues

Major election issues

Unemployment

The issue of unemployment was a major problem for the Indian economy, especially affecting the youth. A 2019 report stated that unemployment in India was at a 45-year old high. According to a 2022 World Bank report, India's youth unemployment rate stood at 23.2%, whereas the national unemployment hovered around 7%. A 2023 report found that 42.3% of graduates under 25 years of age, were unemployed and indicated a lack of growth in jobs needed to accommodate the increasing workforce.

Unemployment took a centre stage in the election campaigns, with the opposition criticising the BJP government's handling of the Indian economy with rising inflation, inequality and unemployment. As a part of its separate youth manifesto, the Congress also promised to fill in the 3 million vacancies in government jobs and bring in a "Right to Apprenticeship", in which any diploma and degree holder up to the age of 25 can demand employment for one year and they will get a one-year salary of ₹1 lakh (US$1,200) for the term of the job.

Ram Mandir consecration and sectarianism

The BJP engaged in massive propaganda issuing pamphlets for the inauguration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya to connect with families across the nation. The consecration of the Ram Mandir resulted in Hindu nationalistic sentiment dominating the political sphere in India. The BJP kept a long-standing political pledge of the reconstruction of the Ram Mandir and was seen to have fulfilled the manifesto to the nation's Hindu population. The Hindu nationalist ideology of the BJP has garnered substantial support from the Hindu community. At the same time, Bollywood productions were released with themes supporting the Modi government's policies and Hindu nationalist ideologies. In response to such concerns, BJP spokesperson Mmhonlumo Kikon acknowledged the existence of a "level of threat perception", but said that the party was trying to change that.

A massive controversy was stirred when the opposition led by the Congress and its leaders declined an invitation to the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony, saying that the event was politicised into an event by the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Then Chief Minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the invitation was an opportunity for the Congress to 'reduce its sin', and that history would continue to judge it as 'anti-Hindu' if it does not attend the ceremony. Hindu religious heads Shankaracharyas also declined attending the event, stating that the ceremony was politicised as a campaign event at the half-built temple.

During a campaign rally in Rajasthan on 21 April, Modi accused the Congress party of prioritizing Muslim access to national wealth and planning to distribute resources among "those who have more children" and "infiltrators" once it was in power, which reflected stereotypes about Muslims reproducing in greater numbers and conspiracy theories pushed by the BJP that Muslims were planning to outnumber Hindus. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge called Modi's remarks a panic-filled "hate speech" and a ploy to divert attention from the opposition outperforming the BJP during the first phase of the election, while officials in Rajasthan received complaints from the Azad Adhikar Sena and a non-profit organisation demanding Modi's arrest and for his campaign to be suspended.

A complaint letter by the Samvidhan Bacchao Nagrik Abhiyan (Save the Constitution Citizens' Campaign), a non profit organization to the Election Commission of India, signed by over 17,400 people, alleged that Modi had violated the Model Code of Conduct and the Representation of the People Act, 1951 by making a speech aimed at not only appealing to communal feelings but also instigating and aggravating hatred in the Hindus against Muslims.

Electoral Bonds

On 15 February 2024, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the Electoral Bond system of campaign financing that was introduced by the central government in 2017 was unconstitutional. The system which had allowed individuals and companies to donate money to political parties anonymously and without limits as the court observed that the process allowed donors to assert influence over policy making. On 18 March, the court ordered State Bank of India (SBI) to provide all records regarding the electoral bonds to the Election Commission by 21 March in order to match electoral donors with their recipients and rejected a plea by the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India from divulging the identities of donors.

Reports revealed that among the leading donors to political parties were some of India's largest firms such as Vedanta, Bharti Airtel, RPSG Group and Essel Mining and that the BJP was the largest recipient. The data revealed that the top five political parties in terms of electoral bonds received are the BJP, which received ₹6,060.5 crore (US$730 million), the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which received ₹1,609.5 crore (US$190 million), the Congress with ₹1,421.8 crore (US$170 million), the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which received ₹1,214.7 crore (US$150 million), and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which received ₹775.5 crore (US$93 million). The biggest buyer of electoral bonds was found to be Santiago Martin, head of Future Gaming and Hotel Services, a Tamil Nadu-based lottery firm, who had bought bonds worth ₹1,368 crore (US$160 million) and made donations to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), TMC and the BJP. The biggest single donor to any political party was Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), a construction firm based in Hyderabad that bought electoral bonds worth over ₹1,200 crore (US$140 million) between 2019 and 2024 and made donations to the BRS, the BJP, and the Congress.

Some politicians from the opposition have termed the bonds a scam and an extortion racket. In response to allegations regarding the electoral bonds, BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam denied that the party had done any wrongdoing and said that its electoral bonds were gained on merit. However, political observers and news agencies observed that Indian businessmen regularly used the scheme to covertly bribe their way out of trouble and the central government led by the BJP might have used government agencies to extort them. From the data released, it was found that certain companies gave donations around the time they had received major central and certain state government contracts and close to half of the top 30 corporate donors were facing investigations by government agencies around the time they purchased electoral bonds.

Cases against opposition

Further information: Arrest of Arvind Kejriwal

The BJP-led government was accused by the opposition of using the Enforcement Directorate to target opposition politicians critical of it, with majority of the cases against politicians registered against opposition leaders. Since 2014, 25 opposition leaders facing corruption charges have joined the BJP, with 23 of them having their inquiries closed or frozen after joining the ruling party.

After the arrest of then Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the Delhi liquor scam on 22 March, in the lead to the elections, the opposition led by Kejriwal's AAP contested that the Enforcement Directorate is investigating chief ministers not allied with the BJP on various charges, while investigations have been closed on former opposition politicians who have since joined the BJP. Hartosh Singh Bal, a journalist for the current affairs magazine The Caravan told Agence France-Presse that the move by government agencies indicated their behavior as "handmaidens of the ruling party to cow down the political opposition". Delhi's finance minister Atishi Singh accused the BJP of orchestrating a political conspiracy against Kejriwal. His arrest also led to clashes between party leaders, supporters and the police on 22 March. Rahul Gandhi, reacting to the arrest, said that a "scared dictator" wants to create a "dead democracy", which was construed as an indirect reference to Modi and his government.

A few days after arrest Kejriwal, the opposition alliance held a protest rally against the same in Ramlila Maidan, Delhi on 31 March, where opposition leaders alleged the corruption case on him and his subsequent arrest to be a fabrication with political motives and a witch hunt. At the rally, named "Loktantra Bachao" (Save Democracy), the opposition tried to frame the election as being "democracy vs dictatorship". Rahul Gandhi warned that the whole of India will be on fire if the BJP wins the 2024 parliamentary elections and changes the Constitution, during the event.

After he was released on bail and allowed to vote, Kejriwal urged citizens to "vote against the dictatorship" and was forced to retur to prison after the elections as part of his bail conditions.