Two main rivals of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who accuse his government of targeting them with unfounded criminal investigations, voted in New Delhi in a resumption of the country's six-week general election.
Hindu nationalist Modi, 73, remains widely popular after a decade in office and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to win a third term next month. But allegations that the BJP tried to remove its opponents through the judicial system raised concerns from UN rights chief Volker Turk and rights groups about the fairness of the election.
Rahul Gandhi, the most prominent leader of India's opposition party Indian National Congress (INC), casts his vote at a polling station in New Delhi, where it is predicted. The son, grandson and great-grandson of former prime ministers, Gandhi paused after voting to take a selfie with his mother Sonia but did not speak to reporters. The scion of a dynasty that dominated Indian politics for decades, he was hit with criminal defamation last year after a complaint by a member of Modi's party. His two-year prison sentence disqualifies him from parliament until the sentence is overturned by a higher court.
After the vote, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, 55, leader of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), urged citizens: "Please vote, exercise your right to vote and vote against the dictatorship." Kejriwal was arrested in March in a long-running bribery case and detained for several weeks before the Supreme Court granted him bail earlier this month and he returned to campaigning. Investigators "had no evidence and yet they locked him up," opposition voter Yogesh Kumar, 42, told AFP. "It was a crude display of power. The INC heads an opposition alliance of over two dozen parties contesting together against Modi, including the AAP. Kejriwal's party grew out of an anti-corruption movement a decade ago (its name means Party of the Common Man) and was elected to rule in the Delhi region and Punjab state, but has struggled to establish itself as a national force.
In February, authorities froze several INK bank accounts as part of an ongoing dispute over income tax returns filed five years ago. According to Gandhi, this move has seriously affected the party's ability to contest the elections. "We don't have money to campaign, we can't support our candidates," Gandhi, 53, told reporters in March.
Modi's political opponents and international rights campaigners have long sounded the alarm about India's shrinking democratic space. The US think tank Freedom House said this year that the BJP has "increasingly used state institutions to target political opponents". /BGNES, AFP
