The hottest guestlist in town

No, we’re not talking about the Ambani wedding. On Saturday evening, the BJP submitted a strong first list of 195 candidates to the ECI for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah return to contest their seats in Varanasi and Gandhinagar seats. A total of 34 central ministers and junior ministers have been included so far. 

In the fray: Heavyweight Rajya Sabha MPs like Bhupender Yadav and Rajeev Chandrasekhar—who were previously elected by state legislatures—have been inducted to contest polls. Yadav, the Environment and Labour Minister representing Rajasthan, will contest from Alwar. Karnataka’s Chandrasekhar, however, is the BJP's candidate for Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram constituency. It sets the stage for a fierce battle against the stronghold of Congress heavyweight Shashi Tharoor, who has held the seat since 2009. 

28 Women So Far: That’s 14% of the 195 candidates listed. Remember, the NDA passed the Women’s Reservation Bill in 2023, which is scheduled to come into force only after the next census is published. They would have to announce 150 women out of the remaining 347 candidates to meet the 33% figure that their bill seeks to reserve for women in the Lok Sabha. Our Big Story has more on why this figure continues to be a very long-term plan.

Of the 28: Bansuri Swaraj, a Supreme Court advocate and the daughter of former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, has been nominated from the New Delhi seat. The controversial Pragya Singh Thakur was dropped from Bhopal. In Hyderabad, the BJP fielded 49-year-old Madhavi Latha Kompella, who campaigned to abolish the triple talaq, against AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi.

One Muslim candidate: Abdul Salam, who is contesting Kerala’s Malappuram constituency. He is a former Vice Chancellor of Calicut University and joined the BJP in 2019.

Also nominated: Devendra Jhajharia, arguably India’s greatest-ever paralympian from Rajasthan’s Churu seat. The javelin thrower is the only Indian athlete to win two individual gold medals at an Olympic Games, that too 12 years apart. 

A blow to protesting farmers: Ajay Mishra Teni has been renominated from Kheri in Uttar Pradesh. His son Ashish Mishra was charged of murder and criminal conspiracy by a special investigation team of the UP Police, as he was allegedly behind one of the vehicles that mowed down four farmers protesting the Centre’s farm laws in Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021. Out of the 51 candidates in UP, 44 sitting MPs were renominated, with four new faces introduced. Remember, UP has the most seats (80) up for grabs.

In campaign-related news: The BJP’s intensified grassroots outreach, focusing on wooing ground-level workers of its rival parties in Hindi-heartland states. These “Milan Samaroh” get-togethers have been attended by booth-level Opposition parties’ workers, village pradhans, former zila panchayat functionaries, municipal corporators and even rival candidates of the past Assembly and local body elections. “The objective of these programmes is to bring booth level support of the Opposition to BJP.”

NDA on the verge of Rajya Sabha majority 

Quick reminder: Members of the upper house are not elected by ordinary voters—but by members of state legislatures. So a majority in a state should give you the power to elect your party members to the Rajya Sabha—in theory.

A round-up across states: In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress received an unpleasant surprise in the Rajya Sabha polls. Its nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi was defeated when nine MLAs—six from Congress and three Independents—voted against him. The result: victory of the BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan. On Wednesday, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s government survived by barely passing the budget—which is necessary to avoid a vote of confidence. Fifteen BJP MLAs were kicked out—and the rest walked out. 

While Himachal Pradesh was the most unexpected outcome, there were also claims of cross-voting among Samajwadi MLAs in Uttar Pradesh—where the BJP won eight out of ten seats. They bagged one of three seats in Congress-ruled Karnataka.

What this means: Lok Sabha elections aside, the past week’s elections mean that the BJP-led NDA is now four short of securing a simple majority of 121 seats in the upper house, which currently has a strength of 240. It is likely to cross this majority mark in 2026, when the next election cycle for Rajya Sabha takes place, making it easier to pass legislations and amendments uncontested. (The Hindu)

Seat-sharing deals for INDIA 

Uttar Pradesh: Earlier this week, the Congress and Samajwadi Party announced a seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha polls, the first of the INDIA alliance. The INC will contest 17 out of the total 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh—including its traditional bastions Raebareli and Amethi. It will also field a candidate in PM Modi’s constituency Varanasi—clearly going for the win. SP retained a whopping 63 seats—which speaks volumes for Congress’ clout in UP. (Indian Express)

In Delhi: Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have reportedly reached a seat-sharing agreement. AAP are fielding candidates in four of the seven seats in the capital, while the remaining three went to the Congress. It marks another state where the Grand Old Party agreed to contest a lower number of seats—implying its waning clout. FYI: All seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi have been with the BJP since 2014. (Hindustan Times)

Maha Deal: The opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has reportedly completed its seat-sharing talks for Maharashtra, which has the second-highest number of constituencies (48). Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena will contest 21 constituencies, while the INC takes 15. Nine seats will go to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, as the remaining three may go to recent entrants Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), led by Prakash Ambedkar. The MVA have held off any official announcement to avoid parties (read: the BJP) who “could poach or threaten the alliance candidates”.  (New Indian Express)

Congress’ sad irony with electoral donations

While striking down the Electoral Bonds Scheme last week, the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench suggested reverting to an existing ‘Electoral Trust’ mechanism. Under this, a company can set up a trust and accept donations from corporations and individuals. Unlike bonds that are direct transfers between an anonymous donor and the political organisation, Electoral Trusts allow sums of money from different entities to be pooled together, leaving it upon the trust’s management to decide which party it goes to. 

The irony: It was the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) who introduced them via the 2013 Electoral Trust Scheme. However, a joint investigation by The News Minute and NewsLaundry reveals how the BJP came to be the biggest beneficiary of ETs. Here’s some perspective: “The total money that Congress has received in the 10 years between 2013 and 2023 through Electoral Trusts is less than the amount that BJP made through the same scheme in just 2022-23.” 

ETs allow for semi-anonymous donations: While the names and amounts of contributions are submitted to the Election Commission of India every year, “there cannot be a correlation made between any company and any party”. At least, in theory. 

Most of the BJP’s money through this channel came from one single organisation— Prudent Electoral Trust set up by the Bharti group. Companies like MEIL, Serum Institute, ArcelorMittal, DLF, GMR, and the TVS group have contributed to Prudent, which has given a lot more money to the BJP than the Congress every year since 2014. About 75% of its total donations (Rs 14.3 billion) went to the BJP in 2021-22.

While contesting elections and running a political party is indeed an expensive ordeal, Electoral Trusts’ trends over the last decade raise questions about the degree to which big corporations should be allowed to influence a political parties’ performance in a democracy.

NewsLaundry has details on the disproportionate amounts received by the BJP over the last ten years, but it is behind a paywall. A related good read: Our Big Story on the recent SC ruling on electoral bonds. 

A list of good reads

One: On The Hindu, the Communist Party of India Annie Raja’s candidature from Wayanad has once again ignited the debate on whether Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should seek a re-election from the seat, where he faces a friendly party, or actually take the battle to the BJP. 

Two: Shikhar Singh ran telephone-based and online survey experiments to uncover which types of welfare schemes win over voters. One of many interesting findings: relatively inexpensive benefits like extending gas connections can have as much (if not more) political impact as expensive benefits like housing programs. Carnegie Endowment has more data-driven research on India’s 2024 elections and the political economy.

Three: Rest of World takes a look at the role of YouTube as the primary platform for political campaigning in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Four: It’s often easy to forget just how massive India’s electorate is—not to mention the dizzying regional variance within. The Hindu compares the number of voters in our states to entire countries—listing constituencies with the highest turnouts. It’s a useful primer to understand the distribution of votes, and the impact of seat redistribution that is likely over the next ten years, with a new census.