NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and election rival Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi traded barbs about campaign funding on Wednesday, with both sides accusing the other of taking money from top industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani.
Neither of the business leaders have made any public comment about who they might support in the election, if anyone, and their businesses did not reply to requests for comment. Neither candidate presented any evidence for their claims.
The comments from Modi seek to counter Gandhi’s long-running criticism about what he says are Modi’s ties to the country’s two richest men, weeks into the election where differences over growth, poverty and unemployment are key themes.
But the ramped up rhetoric could also be part of a change of tack from Modi.
A lower turnout so far in the six-week vote has rattled Modi’s campaign managers and called into question whether his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies can achieve the landslide predicted by opinion polls a month ago, BJP leaders and political analysts have told Reuters.
They say the lack of momentum seems to have prompted Modi to change the thrust of his campaign speeches, focusing on economic growth before the first phase of voting to now attacking rivals as pro-Muslims and in other ways in bid to fire up the party’s hardline base.
The cargo ship that hit the Baltimore bridge seen in this photo.— AFP/file WASHINGTON: A stranded cargo ship that...
Rohingya refugees flee fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state amid junta-rebel clashes. — AFP/file GENEVA: The UN...
A passenger coming of the Blue origin capsule.— Blueorigin website/file WASHINGTON: After a nearly two year hiatus,...
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks during a meeting with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the...
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico looks on during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin,...
The Chinese training ship Qijiguang and amphibious warfare ship Jinggangshan are taking part in land and sea drills...