Pandemic Fallout, Onion Prices Dominate Indian Election

Social distancing has been abandoned in frantic campaigning to form a government in the Indian state of Bihar, in the world's biggest election since the coronavirus pandemic erupted

Patna, India, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Oct, 2020 ) :Social distancing has been abandoned in frantic campaigning to form a government in the Indian state of Bihar, in the world's biggest election since the coronavirus pandemic erupted.

Tens of thousands of people have crowded rallies by rival leaders, with hardly a mask in sight, ahead of Wednesday's first round of voting in the state of 125 million people.

The poll is the first in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a strict virus lockdown in late March that led to millions of poor migrant workers, many from Bihar, losing their jobs with some having to walk for days or weeks back home.

The state, one of India's poorest, has been ruled by an alliance of Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and the regional Janta Dal United party for over a decade.

But opinion polls indicate disquiet with the incumbent regime, particularly Chief Minister Nitish Kumar from the JDU, who has been in power for most of the past 15 years, over perceptions he has not done enough to lift the state out of poverty.

Kumar's unpopularity has been further exacerbated by the lockdown, with hundreds of thousands of workers who returned home from other states still unable to find work in Bihar.

"There's been a lack of any development over the last 15 years under this (state) chief minister," Mohan Guruswamy from the Centre for Policy Alternatives think tank told AFP.