Modi eyes election victory, top opponent back behind bars

NEW DELHI: A top opponent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed Sunday to keep fighting “dictatorship” before he returned to jail Sunday, following elections widely expected to produce another landslide victory for the Hindu-nationalist leader.

Arvind Kejriwal is among several opposition leaders under criminal investigation, with colleagues describing his arrest the month before the general elections began in April as a “political conspiracy” orchestrated by Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The chief minister of the capital Delhi and a key leader in an alliance formed to compete against Modi, Kejriwal was detained in March over a long-running corruption probe.

He was later released and allowed to campaign but ordered to return to jail once voting ended.

“When power becomes dictatorship, then jail becomes a responsibility,” said Kejriwal, who promised to continue “fighting” from behind bars.

“I don’t know when I will return,” he told supporters in an emotional departure speech at his Aam Aadmi party headquarters.

“I don’t know what they will do to me... every drop of my blood is for the country.”

Kejriwal later returned to jail, his party spokesman told AFP.

Exit polls showed Modi was well on track to triumph, with the premier saying he was confident that “the people of India have voted in record numbers” to re-elect his government.

Results are expected Tuesday but supporters of Modi in his constituency of Varanasi — the spiritual capital of the Hindu faith — said they believed their leader’s win was secure.

“His government is coming back,” said Nand Lal, selling flowers outside a temple.

Voting in the seventh and final staggered round of the six-week poll ended on Saturday, held in brutally hot conditions across swaths of the country.

At least 33 polling staff died from heatstroke in Uttar Pradesh state alone, where temperatures hit 46.9 degrees Celsius (116.4 degrees Fahrenheit), election officials said.

India’s top court granted Kejriwal bail last month, giving a fleeting boost to the opposition’s quixotic campaign to oust Modi, but ordered him to return to custody after the election.

Kejriwal, 55, has been chief minister for nearly a decade and first came to office as a staunch anti-corruption crusader. His government was accused of corruption when it implemented a policy to liberalise the sale of liquor in 2021 and give up a lucrative government stake in the sector.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024