The author analyses India’s contemporary political landscape ahead of the elections and provides various possible scenarios that could emerge after the vote counting exercise has concluded.

814 million voters will make the 16th parliamentary elections in India the largest democratic exercise in the world. Opinion polls suggest that the Congress Party will register a decline this time, with the BJP projected to rise to new heights. Most observers see Narendra Modi of the BJP as the most likely person to become the new prime minister of India so the question is: can the ‘Gujarat Development Model’ be a blueprint for the whole country? Of interest to observers is also the question what difference the arrival of a new political formation like the Aam Aadmi Party will make to Indian politics? Will it make a meaningful contribution towards the transformation of the political-economic system in the country by steering it away from the endemic corruption that has come to mark it and by ensuring that the focus shifts to more substantive issues and to good governance?