The Indian Establishment's wholehearted love affair with an increasingly deregulated and state capitalist economic model has resulted in an atrophying of the choices on offer in April's Lok Sabha elections.

Both the Congress Party-dominated United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) United Democratic Alliance are broadly in agreement that the future for India is a neoliberal one.

Any policy differences tend to be ones about the pace of change, especially as regards the opening up of more sectors to direct foreign investment enshrined in the proposed EU-India free trade agreement.

Both rely on the murky world of corporate finance and wealthy individuals for their very existence. According to the advocacy group Association for Democratic Reforms more than 90 per cent of funding for the two main parties comes from undeclared sources.

The UPA, in power at a federal level since 2004 when electors rejected the obviously sham claims of the outgoing right-wing coalition that "India's Shining," is in deep trouble.

Its dislocated economic policies have promoted unsustainable booms in certain sectors while manufacturing and agriculture struggle.

At the same time, numerous corruption scandals involving everything from telecommunications licences to military contracts, both among Congress Party lawmakers and those of its allied parties, have damaged the coalition's reputation not only for competence but for probity as well.

Its woeful performance in four state elections at the turn of the year panicked the Congress Party into a well used tactic from previous decades - when in trouble, find a Gandhi.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh architect of India's shift from a social democratic to a neoliberal economic model, announced that he would not be standing in April's elections. Party chiefs then elevated Rahul Gandhi, son of the assassinated Rajiv.

Yet in a clear sign of uncertainty over the political inexperience of the 43-year old, Rahul has been made head of the party's election campaign but not officially its prime ministerial candidate.

A stuttering and stumbling performance during his first major media interview with TimesNow did nothing to calm party fears, prompting journalist John Elliot to suggest that "his sights are probably on the following general election, but he will have to sharpen up his views and leadership skills if he is to succeed even then."

The main opposition, currently running high in the opinion polls, has no such nascent leadership issues. Rather it is challenged by the long and controversial track record of its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.

The "Modi Model" is highly indebted to the Chicago School and in its support for big business and contempt for niceties such as the rights of the poor and marginalised presents an image worryingly close to that of Pinochet's Chile.

As the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, Modi has pursued an accelerated version of the wider state capitalist model obsessively focussed on headline growth figures whilst aggressively attracting inward investment and urban growth through low interest rates, cheap rentals and waiving stamp duties, sidelining the opposition.

This has come at the cost of rural development. Land acquisition is rampant in Gujarat with the government taking away the resources of thousands of farmers to make way for large industries owned by conglomerates such as Reliance and Adani.

And the results have been mixed, with Gujarat doing no better than most large Indian states in overall economic growth and worse than most in the distribution of that wealth to the poorest.

In a 2012 article, Surjhit S Bhalla analysed the impact of the "Modi Model" on alleviating poverty among the state's hard-pressed Muslim population.

According to this index, Gujarat's rank was 15th out of 18 big states in poverty reduction among Muslims relative to the non-disadvantaged population. Bhalla concluded "Gujarat has delivered growth under Modi, but such growth has been neither equitable nor inclusive."

Modi's wider relationship with India's main non-Hindu minority is also a cause for concern. He is accused of being too reliant on the Rashtriya Swamaymsevak Sangh (RSS) a right wing Hindu movement with strong leverage over the BJP. Their support for him was certainly a vital element in his survival as chief minister after the 2002 religious riots in which at least 1,000 Gujaratis, mainly Muslims, died.

Outside the two main party groupings, India's many smaller regional parties are projected to do well overall compared to 2009.

This has prompted Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat to comment that "we are hoping and expecting something like the 1996 model. The whole question will be whether the non-Congress secular parties can get together and be able to form a government. In that context, we see a role for the Left in that."

One new political reaction to recent events has been the launch of Aam Aadmi or the Common Man Party. Growing out of concern about corruption, the fledgling entity performed well in the Delhi state election where it is now the largest single party.

Yet doubts persist as to whether it can extend its reach beyond the more liberal urban bourgeoisie and outside of Delhi itself, particularly in time for the April elections.

A more long-standing response to recent Indian economic and political issues has been that of the Naxalite movements, in total comprising an estimated 120,000 operatives.

Mainly concentrated in the eastern Indian states, these armed forces are strongly influenced by Maoism and owe their origins to the ruthless exploitation of the poor and the adivasis or tribal peoples by local elites.

In recent years, as the Indian economy has been opened up to overseas corporations, so has the level of exploitation and violence and the result is an upsurge in Naxalite activity.

In 2010, Manmohan Singh described the Naxalites as the single biggest threat to the country's security and since then paramilitary forces of the state have been used in ever greater numbers to crush the movements - with only short-lived and tangential successes to date.

The final article looks at the prospects for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Left in general, both in the short term and as regards the longer-term fight for a socialist India