The party took power in a coalition government four years ago on a platform of more 'inclusive growth' for India's 'have nots', a promise upon which it has mostly failed to deliver.

Asia's third-largest economy has grown nearly 9 percent a year over the past four years, driven largely by consumer demand from the middle-class and soaring foreign investment. Despite the boom, official data shows an estimated 800 million of India's billion-plus people live on 50 U.S. cents a day.

The top 10 per cent of India's population owns between 33 to 50 per cent of the country's wealth, according to a range of estimates by the government, think-tanks and academics.

Uneven economic growth is posing a serious security threat to India, Singh said last December, pointing out that a large proportion of recruits for militant groups came from regions untouched by India's scorching growth.

NO EUPHORIA FOR INDIA'S POOR

While the middle and wealthier English-speaking classes are profiting from an economic surge, it is unclear how well this is trickling down to hundreds of millions of Indians living in small towns and rural areas.

Analysts say the failure to deliver social justice and development to India's poorest regions have alienated people and helped open up economic, social and religious divides.

Socio-economic divides and governmental apathy are said to fuel some of India's deadliest insurgencies in which thousands of people have been killed, including a four-decade-long Maoist rebellion and several armed movements in the remote northeast.

A contest for jobs and development is in part the reason for a violent Hindu-Christian conflict raging in the country's east.

... contd.