2019 Indian general election

General elections were held in India in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 23 May. Around 912 million people were eligible to vote, and voter turnout was over 67 percent – the highest ever in any Indian general election, as well as the highest ever participation by women voters until the 2024 Indian general election.

The Bharatiya Janata Party won in a landslide receiving 37% of the vote, the highest vote share by a political party since the 1989 general election, and winning 303 seats, further increasing its substantial majority. In addition, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 353 seats. The BJP outperformed most exit polls which had predicted a much narrower mandate for the ruling alliance. The BJP won 37.76% of votes, while the NDA's combined vote was 45% of the 603.7 million votes that were polled. The Indian National Congress won 52 seats, failing to get 10% of the seats needed to claim the post of Leader of the Opposition. In addition, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 91 seats, while other parties won 98 seats.

Legislative assembly elections in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim were held simultaneously with the general election, as well as by-elections of twenty-two seats of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.

Electoral system

All 543 elected MPs are elected from single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. The President of India appoints an additional two members from the Anglo-Indian community if he believes that community is under-represented.

Eligible voters must be Indian citizens, 18 or older, an ordinary resident of the polling area of the constituency and registered to vote (name included in the electoral rolls), possess a valid voter identification card issued by the Election Commission of India or an equivalent. Some people convicted of electoral or other offences are barred from voting.

The elections are held on schedule and as per the Constitution of India that mandates parliamentary elections once every five years.

Election schedule

The election schedule was announced by Election Commission of India (ECI) on 10 March 2019, and with it the Model Code of Conduct came into effect.

The election was scheduled to be held in seven phases. In Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the election was held in all seven phases. The polling for the Anantnag constituency in the state of Jammu and Kashmir was held in three phases, due to violence in the region.

Rescheduled voting, cancellations

• Vellore, Tamil Nadu: Over ₹11 crore (US$1.3 million) in cash was seized in Vellore from DMK leaders – a regional party in Tamil Nadu. According to The News Minute, this cash is alleged to have been for bribing the voters. Based on the evidence collected during the raids, the Election Commission of India cancelled the 18 April election date in the Vellore constituency. The DMK leaders denied wrongdoing and alleged a conspiracy.
• Tripura East, Tripura: The Election Commission of India deferred polling from 18 to 23 April due to the law and order situation. The poll panel took the decision following reports from the Special Police Observers that the circumstances were not conducive for holding free and fair elections in the constituency.

Campaign

Issues

Allegations of undermining institutions

The opposition parties accused the NDA government of destroying democratic institutions and processes. Modi denied these allegations, and blamed Congress and the communists for undermining institutions including the police, the CBI, and the CAG, and cited the murder of BJP activists in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. The Congress party, along with other opposition parties and a group of retired civil servants, accused the ECI of being compromised, and implied that they endorsed the model code of conduct violations by Narendra Modi and other BJP political leaders during their campaigns. Another group of 81 retired civil servants, judges and academics disputed these allegations, made counter-allegations, and stated that the ECI acted fairly and similarly in alleged violations by either side. The group stated that such political attacks on the ECI were a "deliberate attempt to denigrate and delegitimise the democratic institutions".

Economic performance

According to The Times of India, the major economic achievements of the incumbent NDA government included an inflation rate less than 4 per cent, the GST reform, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. Its programs, in recent years, that have positively touched many among the Indian masses, include the Jan Dhan Yojana, rural cooking gas and electricity for homes. According to the IMF, the Indian economy has been growing in recent years, its GDP growth rate is among the highest in the world for major economies, and India is expected to be the fastest growing major economy in 2019–2020 and 2020–2021, with real GDP projected to grow at 7.3 per cent. The GDP growth data has been disputed by a group of Indian social scientists, economists and the political opposition's election campaign, while a group of Indian chartered accountants has defended the data, the GDP calculation methodology, and questioned the motivations of those disputing the recent Indian GDP statistics.

The opposition's election campaign has claimed that both the demonetisation and GST law have "seriously hit small business, farmers and casual labour", states The Times of India. The incumbent has claimed that they inherited a country from the previous Congress-led government that was "a legacy of policy paralysis, corruption and economic fragility", and that the BJP-led government policies have placed India on better economic fundamentals and a fast gear. Modi claims that his government pursued demonetisation in the national interest, his government has identified and de-registered 338,000 shell companies, identified and recovered ₹130,000 crore (US$15 billion) in black money since 2014, and almost doubled India's tax base. The Congress party disputes the incumbents' claims, and has alleged that BJP offices have "become hubs of creating black money", and seeks a judicial inquiry into the Rafale deal with France and BJP's role in corruption.

National security and terrorism

In response to the 2019 Pulwama attack, the Indian Air Force conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan — for the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. The ongoing conflict with Pakistan became a significant factor in the election. The opposition parties accused of politicising the army, whilst the BJP countered their accusations by stating that such allegations raised by them were adversely affecting the morale of armed forces.

According to the Pew Research Center, both before and after the outbreak of recent India-Pakistan tensions, their 2018 and 2019 surveys suggest that the significant majority of the voters consider Pakistan as a "very serious threat" to their country, and terrorism to be a "very big problem".

Unemployment

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Indian voters consider the lack of employment opportunities as a "very big problem" in their country. "About 18.6 million Indians were jobless and another 393.7 million work in poor-quality jobs vulnerable to displacement", stated the Pew report.

A report on unemployment prepared by the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO's) periodic labour force survey, has not been officially released by the government. According to Business Today, this report is the "first comprehensive survey on employment conducted by a government agency after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation move in November 2016". According to this report, the 2017–2018 "usual status" unemployment rate in India is 6.1 per cent, which is a four-decade high. The government has claimed that the report was not final. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) – a United Nations agency, unemployment is rising in India and the "unemployment rate in the country [India] will stand at 3.5 percent in 2018 and 2019 – the same level of unemployment seen in 2017 and 2016", instead of dropping to 3.4 per cent as it had previously projected. According to the ILO's World Employment Social Outlook Report, the unemployment rate in India has been in the 3.4 to 3.6 per cent range over the UPA-government led 2009–2014 and the NDA-government led 2014–2019 periods.

Opposition parties claimed in their election campaign that the unemployment in India had reached crisis levels. The NDA government has denied the existence of any job crisis. Prime minister Narendra Modi claimed that jobs are not lacking but the accurate data on jobs has been lacking.

The opposition has attacked the NDA government's performance with the NSSO reported 6.1 per cent unemployment data. Modi and his government have questioned this job statistics report, stating that "most surveys that try to capture unemployment rate are skewed since these did not cover the unorganised sector, which accounts for 85–90 per cent of jobs [in India]".