Narendra Modi favorite as India prepares for election marathon – World

NEW DELHI: India begins voting on Friday in a six-week election, with Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi's victory almost assured, sparking concerns for the health of the world's largest democracy.

Modi remains widely popular after a decade in power that saw India increase its diplomatic influence and economic power, as well as his government's efforts to increasingly align the faith of the country's majority with its policies.

Analysts had long expected him to win against a divisive alliance of more than two dozen parties that have yet to nominate a prime ministerial candidate.

Modi's prospects have been further boosted by several criminal investigations against his opponents, sparking concerns from U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk and human rights organizations that the vote would be biased.

I don't need the United Nations to tell me that our elections must be free and fair, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told reporters during his campaign this month.

The people of India will ensure this, he added. So don't worry.

Modi, 73, previously led the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through two landslide victories in 2014 and 2019, forged in part through his appeals to the Hindu faithful.

This year, in the city of Ayodhya, he presided over the inauguration of a grand temple dedicated to the deity Ram, built on the grounds of a centuries-old mosque razed by Hindu fanatics.

The construction of the temple fulfilled a long-standing demand from Hindu activists and was widely celebrated across India with back-to-back television coverage and street parties.

The nation is creating the genesis of a new history, he told the thousands gathered for the ceremony, including Bollywood celebrities and cricket stars.

Our ability to fight

The opposition Congress party, which ruled the country almost continuously for decades after independence from Britain, is a shadow of its former self and is no longer in power in all all but three of the country's 28 states.

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Its leaders have assembled an alliance of more than two dozen regional parties to present a united front against the well-oiled and well-funded electoral clout of the BJP.

But the bloc has been plagued by disputes over seat-sharing deals and suffered the defection of a leading government member.

He also accused the Modis government of using law enforcement to selectively target the bloc's leaders, several of whom are the subject of active criminal investigations.

Among them is Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was arrested last month and remains in custody over allegations that his party received bribes while handing out licenses for alcohol to private companies.

Rahul Gandhi is the most prominent Congress politician, and his father, grandmother and great-grandfather all served as prime minister.

He was briefly disqualified from Parliament last year after being convicted of criminal defamation.

His party's bank accounts have been frozen since February by India's Income Tax Department after a dispute over returns filed five years ago.

We don't have money to campaign, we can't support our candidates, the 53-year-old told reporters last month. Our ability to fight elections has been undermined.

Contempt for all dissent

Modi's tenure has seen India overtake former colonial ruler Britain as the world's fifth-largest economy, with Western countries lining up to woo a potential ally in the face of growing assertiveness from regional rival China.

In doing so, they sidestepped concerns about the taming of India's once-vibrant press and restrictions on civil society, which have seen rights groups like Amnesty dramatically scale back their local operations.

Last year, the tax office raided the BBC's local offices weeks after the British channel broadcast a documentary questioning Modi's role in the 2002 religious riots that killed around 1,000 people, for most Muslims.

If Modi wins again, his third term will be even more characterized by contempt for all dissent, political scientist Suhas Palshikar told AFP.

Gandhi criticized the government for democratic backsliding and Hindu nationalism that has left many of the country's 220 million-strong Muslim minorities fearing for their future.

But Gandhi has already led the Congress to two defeats against Modi and his efforts to dent the prime minister's popularity have failed to win over voters.

Published opinion polls are rare in India, but a Pew survey last year found that Modi was viewed favorably by nearly 80 percent of the public.

In total, 968 million people are eligible to vote in these elections, more than the entire population of the United States, the European Union and Russia combined.

Voting will take place in seven stages between April 19 and June 1, with more than a million polling stations across the country.

Ballots from across the country will be counted at once on June 4 and are usually announced the same day.