Leader of the Indian National Congress party, Rahul Gandhi has stated that the nation is going through a storm of change and voters are voting according to their needs.
“This country, bored with the politics of hatred, is now voting on its issues,” Gandhi said in a post on X.
Youth for jobs, farmers for Minimum Support Price and freedom from debt, women for economic independence and security and labourers for fair wages,” he added.
He noted that it has “become clear in the first four phases that the people have stood up to protect the constitution and democracy”.
This came as the fifth phase of voting in India’s seven-phase election took place on Monday, May in 49 seats across six states and two union territories.
The first four phases of the vote were held on April 19, April 26, May 7 and May 13, 2024.
So far, voting has concluded for all the seats in the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka; the southern union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry; and all the northeastern states of Meghalaya, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.
Elections have also concluded in Uttarakhand in the north, Chhattisgarh in central India, and Goa, Gujarat and Rajasthan states in the west.
The next two phases fall on May 25 and June 1, 2024, and the votes will be counted on June 4, 2024.
Gandhi made an appeal to the entire country, “including Amethi and Rae Bareli – come out in large numbers and vote for the prosperity of your families, for your own rights, for the progress of India.”
Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh state have historically been the Congress’s strongholds for decades.
Gandhi is contesting Rae Bareli in place of his mother and former party chief, Sonia Gandhi, who has represented the family stronghold four times in parliament.
Gandhi is also seeking re-election from southern Kerala state’s Wayanad, for which polling has already taken place.
India allows candidates to contest multiple constituencies but they can represent only one.
Ruling Party Said To Have No Answers To Unemployment
Earlier on Monday, Amarnath Agarwal, a political analyst, stated that issues like unemployment, inflation, lack of security and the “government’s attempts to muzzle dissent are glaring problems that the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] has no answers to.”
Agarwal said that excitement over the Hindu temple in Ayodhya may not have translated into a significant political issue for the ruling party and it is “evident from the lack of interest among voters, reflected in a notably low turnout.”
A growing number of Indians are bearing the brunt of the increasing informalisation of work.
The India Employment Report 2024, a study released in March by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Institute for Human Development, stated that India’s workforce is getting more informalised and that the quality of employment has suffered especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study found that about 70 percent of India’s construction workers and 62 percent of its casual agricultural workers earn salaries below minimum wage.
It added that even in the formal sector, about 18 percent of workers did not have work contracts that could protect them. They also had fewer benefits than before.
While India’s economy is pegged to grow at a robust 6.5 percent in the financial year ending March 2025, its ability to create quality jobs to meet the aspirations of its increasingly educated youth has emerged as one of the key issues of the national election currently under way.
READ ALSO: William Lai Ching-Te Sworn In As President Of Taiwan
