IN THE first half of next year India will notch up the usual array of superlatives when the world’s biggest democracy stages the largest voting event on the planet. The parliamentary polls will also be among the most expensive staged anywhere. The Centre for Media Studies in Delhi estimated that campaign spending in the elections that brought Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 2014 was nearly $5bn, more than twice as much as in the previous general election and eclipsed only by the amounts involved in America.
In Karnataka, a southern state of 64m people (about as many as in France), parties have been loosening their purse strings for a crucial limbering-up. On May 12th voters there will vote in elections for the state legislature, which is currently controlled by Congress, the country’s main opposition party. If Congress wins in Karnataka, many analysts will conclude that it might have a chance of performing at least respectably in next year’s national...Continue reading
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