Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired up a big, raucous rally in a hot Delhi late Wednesday as India's almost seven-week election approaches its conclusion later this month. "When work is done with good intentions, it also yields results. Inflation used to be on a rise, it is now under control," Modi told the crowd of several tens of thousands. "The poor have access to houses, toilets, electricity and are being given benefits of Ayushman Bharat (a free health scheme)," the right-winger thundered.
The world's biggest election with 900 million voters began on April 11, and on Sunday it is Delhi's turn to cast ballots on the penultimate voting day of seven before the event ends on May 19.
Being the capital, the heavily polluted metropolis and city state of some 20 million people is a hard-fought and important electoral prize.
Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won all seven Delhi parliamentary seats in 2014, and hopes to fend off a mounting challenge from the Congress Party and local upstart the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The AAP, formed on an anti-corruption plank in 2012, stormed to power in Delhi in state elections in 2015 under its charismatic but polarising leader, Arvind Kejriwal.