Between 19 April and 1 June, India held the world’s largest democratic elections, with 969 million eligible voters. This marathon session was distributed to ensure sufficient allocation of security forces to prevent vote rigging. 543 seats in the Lok Sabha or Lower House of Parliament were open for voting.
Here are six key takeaways that we note from the elections:
- Who’s in power: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected into power for a third term. His party is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the lead party of the ruling collation, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
- Coalition government. The BJP won 240 seats, while the NDA coalition secured a majority with 293 seats. The opposition performed better than expected, increasing its vote share. This suggests that Indian voters desire political choice and multipolarity domestically.
What’s next?
- Economic reforms harder with coalition government: Carrying out deeper economic reforms may be more challenging without a single-party majority, testing Mr Modi’s skills as a coalition builder and persuader. However, a coalition government is likely to cause more debate and consensus-building in parliamentary discussions. While a single-party majority would have been preferable for the ruling dispensation, avenues still exist for the government to build consensus and implement its economic agenda.
- US-India relations: In terms of foreign policy, the structural factors driving the US-India partnership, such as shared concerns about China and economic/technological cooperation, remain in place, indicating a degree of continuity.
- Sector/industrial focus, technology leadership: The NDA is likely to maintain production-linked Incentives to boost MSME manufacturing, particularly in priority industries, such as food processing, defence manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and electronics. Other areas of tech focus will likely be digitisation, employment, and skills upgrading, then specific use cases for technology where India has identified a leadership position; e.g., geospatial mapping, space exploration and policy, and graphene-based technology, among others.
- Domestic concerns around jobs and skills: Domestically, the government will need to focus heavily on job creation and economic reforms to address post-COVID restlessness and discontent, especially among urban workers. Attracting foreign and domestic investment will be crucial.
Access Partnership’s Data Governance team closely follows issues and trends in public policy and government relations. If you would like more information on regional public sector trends in technology, please contact Lim May-Ann at [email protected].
