Campaigns enter final stretch in India’s months-long election

By Reuters
May 19, 2024
Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, arrives to address the media after the initial poll results in Karnataka elections at the party headquarters, in New Delhi, India on May 13. — Reuters
Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, arrives to address the media after the initial poll results in Karnataka elections at the party headquarters, in New Delhi, India on May 13. — Reuters

NEW DELHI: Campaigning in India’s ongoing elections gathered pace on Saturday (May 18) with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the election was about building a stronger India while opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said protecting the constitution was central.

Modi, seeking a third term, held a rally in capital city New Delhi, telling crowds the 2024 elections were to save people from “the ideology and tradition of nepotism.”

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in a rally on Friday (May 17) said Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was trying to destroy the country’s constitution.

Sonia Gandhi, the leader of India’s Congress party and Rahul Gandhi’s mother, made an emotional appeal to voters in the family borough, asking them to vote for her son, who is standing in a region that Modi and his party have dominated in the last ten years.

The 2024 national election covers 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, that will be held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1, with vote counting on June 4.