Election Pitch: Decoding Polls Through Data

Political parties position their plans as welfare for the needy, and dismiss others’ as wasteful giveaways. There’s no legal definition of a freebie, so a useful thumb rule is to assess whether a government has planned the fiscal room before announcing a scheme.

The unemployment rate has declined steadily from 6.1% in 2017-18 to 3.2% in 2022-23, boosting the government’s defence against claims of jobless growth. But look no further than the official surveys to find that the quality of jobs is far from inspiring.

There is no quick solution to farmers’ problems, but the ongoing protests come at an uneasy time for the government ahead of national elections. The third part of our pre-election data series explains the Centre's report card from the last 10 years

India has made huge policy strides on these two key issues in the past 10 years, but the healthcare system remains in the ICU and the education sector is yet to achieve a pass mark. We explore the Modi government’s track record in the fourth part of our pre-election series.

India’s corporate-reforms scorecard under the BJP government has been a mix of hits and misses. In the fifth part of our pre-election data series, we evaluate what was transformative and what remains half-baked.