Why India’s ‘last hope against dictatorship’ is falling apart

The key opposition to Narendra Modi is in disarray just months ahead of general elections that the current PM is predicted to win by a historic margin, reports Maroosha Muzaffar

The Indian National Congress, the party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru that has led independent India for most of the seven-and-a-half decades since it won its freedom from British colonialism, has a dire warning for the country’s upcoming general election: if Narendra Modi wins a rare third term in power, India will devolve into a “dictatorship”.

“This will be the last opportunity for the people to save democracy in India. If Narendra Modi wins another election, there will be a dictatorship in the country. The BJP will rule India like (Vladimir) Putin in Russia,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said earlier this week in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha.

The problem for Kharge and Congress as a whole is that internal divisions within the party’s opposition alliance – dubbed INDIA – seem to be making more headlines than any concerned statements about the direction of the country under Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP.