India’s opposition makes its election case, calling Modi an autocrat and promising aid to the poor

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s main opposition party vowed to boost social spending and reverse what it views as a slide into autocracy as it laid out its campaign promises on Friday, two weeks before the start of a weeks-long, multi-phase general election.

Most polls have predicted a victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party for a third straight five-year term. But the Congress Party argues that he’s undermined India’s democracy and favored the interests of the rich in its election manifesto.

India holds elections on different days in different parts of the country, stretching over weeks. Voting for the country’s parliament this year will begin on April 19 and run until June 1, and the results will be announced on June 4.

Modi is broadly popular in India, where he’s considered a champion of the country’s Hindu majority and has overseen rapid economic growth. But critics say another term for the BJP could undermine India’s status as a secular, democratic nation, saying it’s 10 years in power have brought attacks by Hindu nationalists against the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims, and a shrinking space for dissent and free media.

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Rahul Gandhi, a former Congress party president, said “this election is fundamentally a different election. I don’t think that democracy has been as much at risk, the constitution has been at as much risk as it is today.”

Congress’s president, Mallikarjun