General Election, 19 April – 1 June 2024

India held its election through a seven-phase process which ran from 19 April 2024 to 1 June 2024. India has a bicameral legislature, and members of the lower house (the Lok Sabha) are directly elected through a first-past-the-post system (IFES 2024). The 543 MPs are elected for five-year terms, and the prime minister (effective head of government) is elected by the party (or coalition) that forms a parliamentary majority (IFES 2024). Elections in India are managed by the Election Commission of India (ECI), whose independence and impartiality is safeguarded by Article 324 of the Constitution (see also: Business Standard 2024). 

The 2024 elections took place under the backdrop of the opening of the highly contentious Ram Temple in Ayodhya (on the ruins of the former Babri Mosque – see: Aprovanand 2024) and the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019. Both events had greatly increased tension between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority within the country’s population (ACLED 2024).  

The elections took place during a severe heatwave that swept across Western and Northern parts of the country, with temperatures as high as 52.9 degrees Celsius claiming lives. At least 33 poll workers died in a single day in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (Mitra 2024). This led to dissatisfaction amongst poll workers about the level of care provided by ECI (Tripathi 2024).  

On 9 March, a sitting Election Commissioner abruptly resigned and was swiftly replaced through a newly adopted appointment procedure. Under 2023 legislation, the three-member committee that regulated appointments to the ECI now consists of a Union Minister instead of the Chief Justice of India; its appointments were criticized by opposition parties as being too closely aligned with the government (International IDEA 2024a). There were also concerns surrounding actions against opposition figures prior to the elections including the arrest of several Aam Admi Party (AAP) leaders and the freezing of Indian National Congress assets (i.e., the main opposition party) (International IDEA 2024a).  

There were sporadic incidents of violence during the seven-phase election. Elections in Manipur had to be re-run due to ethnic clashes (New York Times 2024).

Many politicians used social media and AI avatars to extend their reach into the large populace. Both the ruling BJP and the Congress parties accused each other of generating deepfakes to harm each other’s campaigns. Meta also came under criticism for  allowing up to 14 adverts on Facebook/Whatsapp that contained Hindu supremacist language (Banerjee et al. 2024).  

Results for the incumbent BJP fell short of their hopes for another significant victory similar to that of 2019. While it won the most seats with 240 and its NDA Alliance secured 293 in total (assuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third term), no single party obtained a 273-seat majority. The opposition INDIA Alliance won 232 seats (Aljazeera 2024). Turnout was 65.79 per cent which is just 1.61 per cent lower than in the last general election (2019 – 67.40 per cent) (International IDEA 2024b).  

Women’s participation increased in 2024, and in more than 137 constituencies there were more women voting than men (Sengupta 2024). However, the number of female elected MPs decreased from 78 to 74 (Verma 2024). Gender-based violence against women was prevalent in the 2024 election, with female politicians and candidates facing widespread sexist remarks and harassment, not only from their opponents but also from within their own party (First Post 2024).