India's Elections to Open April 16

NEW DELHI -- The race to national elections in the world's largest democracy is officially underway.

Reuters

On Monday, India's election commission set the date for the first national polls in five years to open April 16. That leaves 45 days for the multitude of parties here to pitch their message to 714 million voters. The polling will happen over five phases lasting until May 13, with the final vote tallies expected to be counted on May 16, the election commission said.

India's hot growth is slowing quickly, the country is embroiled in a tense to-and-fro with nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan after the late-November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and a streak of inflation has spread unease among India's vast rural population.

The parties, led by the Indian National Congress Party, which leads the current ruling coalition, and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, have already begun trading barbs and setting the issues that will guide the coming weeks. On the top of the list for voters here: the economy and national security.

The global slowdown spreading from the U.S. financial crisis has put the brakes on India's heady growth. The country, which marked a 9% rise in its Gross Domestic Product last year, has seen growth drop to 5.3% in the quarter ended Dec. 31. Government estimates for annual growth for the year ending March 31 are around 7%, and a further slowing is expected in the coming year.

"The economy is the tipping point," says Mahesh Rangarajan , a political analyst and a professor of history at Delhi University. "The bottom line is that there is some 80% of the population that lives on $2 a day. Slowdown means a lot to them. Those are the guys that get hit."

In its five-year tenure as the leading party in the United Progressive Alliance, Congress pushed through a number of large-scale programs for economic relief that they are expected to champion in the campaign. One is a national law that guarantees a job for at least 100 days to unemployed adults in rural households. Another is a $14 billion loan waiver program for indebted farmers, one of the country's largest voting blocs.

"The empowerment of the weaker sections of society has been an article of faith for the Congress party," Congress chairwoman Sonia Gandhi said at a recent party convention.

While the party's programs have been huge in scope, critics say the efforts have been undermined by mismanagement and corruption. Marketing the programs effectively could prove to be Congress's biggest challenge in the following weeks. So far it hasn't been able to milk much political mileage out of the expensive programs, analysts say. A Congress Party spokesman didn't return calls seeking comment.

That job could fall to Rahul Gandhi, Ms. Gandhi's son and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has run Congress since Indian independence in 1947. Though he's remained on the sidelines for the most of the current government, Mr. Gandhi is expected to take a leading role in the campaign. Party officials say that they hope the 38-year-old can appeal to young voters who are looking for new blood among India's aging political elite. Manmohan Singh, the current prime minister who would return to the position if Congress wins, is 76, and the BJP prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani is 81.

The BJP, meanwhile, has pointed to shrinking economic growth and volatile inflation under Congress's rule. "The kind of policies that were pursued intensified the impact of the global recession on India instead of restraining it, which led to the worsening of the situation," Mr. Advani said in a recent speech to the party.

The party has yet to unveil a comprehensive economic platform but has already made a number of populist promises to woo rural voters, including reducing the interest on loans to farmers from the State Bank of India to 4%, down from the 8% rate the loans command now, and guaranteeing a regular water supply to all farmers. Its main job, analysts say, will be to tap into India's anti-incumbency trend by pinning the blame on the current government.

The Mumbai attacks in November that left more than 170 dead have also brought national security to the fore. The BJP has harped on the Congress-led coalition for being "soft on terror" and advocated a harder line against Pakistan, where the attacks were planned. For one, Mr. Advani has suggested that India withdraw from a joint terrorism agreement that Mr. Singh signed with Pakistan's then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2006.

To rally urban voters concerned about terror, the BJP has recruited a rising star in Narendra Modi, the firebrand chief minister of Gujarat state. Officially responsible for the BJP's campaigns in the key states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, where Mumbai is, Mr. Modi is a divisive figure in Indian politics. He is loved by Hindu conservatives, abhorred by liberals. The party's choice to put him in the national spotlight could backfire among moderate Indian voters, observers say.

But terrorism is unlikely to be as big a vote-winner for BJP as the party hopes, analysts say. Disillusioned voters put the blame for terrorism on the political class as a whole rather than any particular party. In fact, Congress is billing itself as the "safe hands" the country needs.

For its part, the BJP says that voters will recognize that Congress hasn't taken decisive action against terrorist threats. "The UPA government has left an insecure India as its legacy," says Ravi Shankar Prasad, a party spokesman and member of India's upper house of Parliament.

With a Parliament of 545 seats, it requires the support of 273 parliamentarians to make a governing coalition. That, however, could prove to be a difficult feat for either of the country's large parties. They have scored fewer and fewer seats in recent elections – Congress has 152 in the current parliament – and are almost certain to have to find a range of partners to form a government.

"You have the Congress and BJP weaker than they've ever been," says Seema Desai, Asia analyst for the New York-based Eurasia Group, a research firm. "They don't have a clear message. They don't have a clear platform."

This leaves open the possibility of a so-called "Third Front" comprised of smaller, regional parties. The likelihood of that depends much on Kumari Mayawati, the charismatic leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, India's largest by population. Her party has branched out beyond its base of lower-caste Hindu voters to higher castes as well as Muslims, making it a potential kingmaker if the party wins as many as 50 seats, political observers say.