India’s Modi seeks re-election

Voters in India’s Gujarat state head to the polls this week to decide whether to re-elect India’s most controversial politician, a man dubbed “the merchant of death” by opponents.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi, campaigning for re-election of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government (BJP), is accused by critics of turning a blind eye to religious riots in the state five years ago in which at at least 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were hacked, burnt and shot to death.

But to supporters, the impeccably groomed Modi is the man who has helped spur rapid economic development in the western state, drawing massive investment, building roads and other infrastructure.

The first stage of the staggered polls will be Tuesday and the final round will be the next Sunday. Results are due December 23.

Modi, 57, nicknamed the Hindu nationalists’ “poster boy,” has sought to rebrand himself, making economic development his central plank.

“Every area you go in Gujarat, you see roads being built, hospitals being built,” he told 3,000 cheering supporters last week. “Gujarat is progressing,” said Modi, who some in the BJP hope could jumpstart the party’s flagging fortunes nationally.

The Congress, on the other hand, has been campaigning on the twin planks of secularism and economic development — and denouncing Modi as a “merchant of death.”

Its star campaigner, party chief Sonia Gandhi, has criss-crossed the state and pulled in crowds, but her rallies have been more subdued than Modi’s.

But while Modi, who has denied all wrongdoing in the riots, was initially seen as a shoo-in for re-election, the race has been getting tighter and now could go either way, analysts say.

“This time, it’s a close contest,” said Mahesh Rangarajan, a New Delhi-based independent political analyst. During the 2002 campaign, Modi fought on an aggressively anti-Muslim platform in the aftermath of the riots and swept the polls, winning 128 of 182 legislative seats.

Modi and his government are accused of tacitly supporting the riots, prompting India’s Supreme Court in 2004 to label him a “modern Nero,” comparing him to the Roman emperor who played his fiddle while his capital burnt.

The riots erupted after 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire first blamed on a Muslim mob but which an inquiry later concluded was accidental.

An Indian magazine “sting” operation in October videotaped police officers vaunting their role in the killings. One BJP politician said Modi told him the killers had three days “to do whatever we wanted.”

Many riot survivors are still piecing together shattered lives, saying they remain marginalised and struggling to come to terms with the killings.

Ahmedabad, Sunday, AFP