Niranjan Sahoo, Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, explores the key issues and implications with regard to India’s 2024 national election, whose outcome is a highly likely to be a victory for the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The ruling party’s organized electoral machinery and the weaponization of state instruments against opposition leaders grant asymmetrical advantages for the BJP’s coalition, while opposition parties have formed a coalition to put up a collective fight against the BJP. Amidst the challenges of economic character, welfare populism, which has been a backbone of Modi’s popularity in the last two elections, is once again taking center stage for both the ruling party and the opposition, competitively offering more provision of public goods.
