Editorial

On 7 May when the third phase of the ongoing elections was taking place in India, the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM) issued a working paper ostensibly to present a comparative study on the changing share of religious minorities in 167 countries of the world between 1950 and 2015.

Nearly midway through the protracted 2024 elections, the BJP has completely junked its rhetoric of universal development and inclusion ('sabka saath sabka vikas') and embraced unbridled anti-Muslim hate as the only theme of its poll campaign. The accusations being made against the opposition by Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders are getting increasingly bizarre and toxic.

The second phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections has consolidated the trends that surfaced with the first phase - fatigue and dejection among BJP voters and growing frustration and desperation of the Sangh-BJP top brass. Voting is now over in close to two hundred seats across India. States like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand have already given loud indications about the expected 2024 outcome giving rise to the formula 'south mein saaf, north mein half' (sweep NDA away in southern states, reduce it to half in the northern states).

Just one phase of the elections has been enough to make the BJP bare its fascist fangs before the whole world. The main talking point after the first phase was the drop in voter turnout. The first phase was the biggest phase covering 101 seats (with elections countermanded in one seat) across sixteen states and four union territories, and the voting percentage dropped almost universally by close to five points.

Just five days before India goes for the protracted seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, the ruling BJP released a 76-page manifesto. It does not talk about the Modi government's failure and betrayal on every promise it has been making since 2014, it does not address the core issues that are on top of the common people's agenda, instead it weaves a rosy dream for India in 2047!

April 11 and 14 mark the birth anniversaries of two of India's greatest names in the battle for social equality - Jyotirao Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar. This year we are celebrating the 197th birth anniversary of Phule (11 April 1827 - 28 November 1890) and the 133rd anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar (14 April 1891 - 6 December 1956).

The Modi government has evidently been rattled by the belated striking down of the Electoral Bond scheme by the Supreme Court and the disclosure of the donor and recipient details. Lawyers associated with the BJP have mounted an orchestrated campaign to harass the CJI and intimidate the judiciary. Prime Minister Modi has not only thrown his full weight behind this campaign by endorsing the letter signed by the dubious group of lawyers, he is missing no opportunity to justify the bonds system struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Massive propaganda blitzkrieg around the Modi cult and unprecedented use of money power have been the defining hallmarks of the Modi mode of electioneering since the launch of the 'Modi for PM' campaign in 2013. Over the last ten years both these factors have grown by leaps and bounds.

The data submitted regarding the Electoral Bonds by the SBI, though incomplete, have already revealed a very murky pattern around this now defunct unconstitutional scheme. There are several anomalies and gaps, especially the unique Bond numbers which the SBI did not disclose, that have still not made it possible to establish specific donor-recipient links. Hopefully those links will be known once the SBI is forced to furnish the suppressed and missing details.

On the eve of the expected announcement of the poll schedule we now suddenly have a series of major political developments. On the Electoral Bond issue, the Supreme Court has rejected the SBI plea for more time for submission of relevant data about the sale and encashment of electoral bonds. Desperate attempts by the Modi government and SBI to defer the disclosure of the Electoral Bond data till after the elections have failed, and the country now awaits the publication of the data by the Election Commission of India.