India’s election could be the world’s most expensive

Ask which of this year’s many elections will be the most expensive, and most people would say America’s. They could well be wrong. India’s most recent general election, in 2019, was already the most costly at the time by some estimates, with campaign spending conservatively put at $8.5bn. America’s presidential poll the next year exceeded that. But India’s parliamentary vote this spring will be much dearer and could exceed the $10bn-16bn that is likely to be splurged on the White House race.

India’s ballooning campaign costs have often been linked to illicit cash, sometimes from the criminal underworld. In recent days, however, a spotlight has fallen on corporate funding after Indian companies, including some of the country’s biggest, were revealed to have made political donations worth hundreds of millions of dollars via an opaque system of “electoral bonds”. Proceeds went overwhelmingly to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).