-The Indian Express Because democracy demands more than the counting of votes. The excitements of the recent general elections are over and the results have been finalised. The totality of the lessons from the elections will, of course, take a long time to emerge with full clarity, but a few simple thoughts about the organisation and use of our electoral system seem immediate. From the British, India has inherited a system of...

-Newsclick.in Like always, several myths are being propagated like – the irrelevance of economic issues or the supremacy of nationalism. But what is the truth? Like all elections everywhere in the world, India’s general election this year too has created its own mythology. Some of it was – understandably – created during the election campaign while some have been generated after the results were out and the BJP-led alliance emerged as a...

-Down to Earth Despite the rural hinterland being in the throes of agrarian distress, the incumbent coalition has won handsomely in these very areas The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has beaten all odds to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Prominent among these odds was the agrarian crisis that rural India is currently in the throes of. Since 2014, the country has suffered two major droughts and 850-odd...

-The Indian Express Across these regions, where mitigation measures to tackle a grave water and fodder scarcity had barely begun during the election campaign, BJP leaders had run a campaign almost entirely on issues of national security, the Pulwama attack and the Balakot airstrike. Mumbai/ Pune: Shrugging off the impact of a crippling drought, anger at slow drought relief measures and years of poor price realisations for most major farm produce,...

-Livemint.com Every pollster has predicted an NDA win. Is exit poll a fraud science or can one attach some credibility to it? On 23 May, India would have a new government and exit pollsters would have their judgment day. The exit polls forecast anywhere between 267 (ABP-Nielsen) to 365 seats (India Today-Axis Poll) for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Such a wide variation in the range...