India votes in Phase 2 of mammoth election as Modi raises campaign pitch

The Indian prime minister pricks challengers by focusing on hot-button issues such as religious discrimination, affirmative action and taxes.

India has voted in the second phase of the world’s biggest election, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his challengers raise the pitch of the campaign by focusing on hot-button issues such as religious discrimination, affirmative action and taxes.

Almost one billion people are eligible to vote in the seven-phase general election that began on April 19 and concludes on June 1, with votes set to be counted on June 4.

A total of 88 seats out of the 543 in the lower house of parliament went to the polls on Friday, with 160 million people eligible to vote across 13 states and federal territories.

Modi is seeking a record-equalling third straight term on the back of his economic record, welfare measures, national pride, Hindu nationalism and personal popularity.

His challengers have formed an alliance of more than two dozen parties and are promising greater affirmative action, more handouts and an end to what they call Modi’s autocratic rule.

More than half of the seats in Friday’s contests were in the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka and the western state of Rajasthan.

Kerala is the only major Indian state where Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never won a parliamentary seat, though it has seen a steady rise in its voter support from 1.75 percent in 1984 to 13 percent in 2019.

In February, Modi said the state gave a “two-digit vote share to the BJP” in 2019. “This time, the party would win double-digit seats from Kerala,” he told an election rally.

But there is little evidence to suggest such support for the BJP in a state dominated by two coalitions for decades – the