NEW DELHI - India starts a mega-election on Thursday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his formidable campaign machine taking on not one but two Gandhis in the world’s biggest vote.
It is staggered partly because of the risk of violence, with over 100 politicians or party officials murdered in 2016 alone, and armed insurgencies raging in at least nine states.Modi, 68, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in 2014, the first party to win an absolute majority since Rajiv Gandhi in 1984.
But economic growth has been too slow to give jobs to the million Indians entering the labour market each month, and unemployment is reportedly at its highest since the 1970s. Gandhi’s Congress party has profited from voter dissatisfaction, winning in December three key state elections, chipping into Modi’s core support base in the Hindi “Cow Belt” regions.
Demagogues on the rise :/