With great promises, Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party BJP won the election five years ago. And indeed, the economy is doing very well – with growth rates of over seven percent, not least because of the successful introduction of a uniform VAT.
But many expectations were not met. In regional elections at the end of last year, the BJP lost its majority in two major states.
However, Modi had started his reign with great vigor and had made some changes, including free bank accounts for the poorest of the poor, insurance for farmers and his campaign for a cleaner India, which has helped raise 96 percent have access to a toilet in the country – according to figures from the Ministry of Water and Sanitation.
Problems in agriculture
However, an important industry, agriculture, is not doing well, complains economic analyst Dharamkirti Kumar Joshi from Mumbai. After all, more than half of the population live directly or indirectly on agriculture. The government should have implemented more reforms, he says.
Although she had tried to make some improvements to the marketing of agricultural products, it did not do much for the farmers. „Overall, a lot has been done for the infrastructure, the construction of new roads, for example, but there are still many weaknesses in energy supply.“
General Election in India
The election to the Indian Parliament begins on April 11 and is expected to last until May 19. Around 900 million voters are called upon to cast their votes for a new parliament in about one million polling stations. There are seven phases to ensure that there are enough security forces and campaign workers everywhere. The votes are to be counted on 23 May.
Too few jobs
Even Modi’s promise to provide more jobs was not met. Jobs were therefore the central topic in the election campaign. While ordinary workers in the so-called informal sector can still get odd jobs, young graduates in particular do not find adequate employment.
Like 30-year-old father Sunil Dev, who has not been able to find a job for more than a year, „There is simply no work, the government does nothing for more jobs and promises better and better times I can only laugh, they promised 20 million jobs a year, but the opposite is true, with 15 million jobs lost each year. „
