Modi says he is set for landslide victory as backlash grows over campaign trail ‘lies and bigotry’

Indian prime minister accused by fact-checkers of filling campaign speeches with falsehoolds about rivals and sectarian dog whistles for Muslims

Narendra Modi greets his supporters during a roadshow in Bhopal (AFP via Getty)

Narendra Modi has claimed that he is on the way to a “thumping victory” in India’s ongoing national elections amid allegations that his campaign speeches and interviews are filled with hate speech and falsehoods.

Mr Modi has been on a whirlwind tour of the country campaigning for a rare third consecutive term as prime minister.

The elections began on 19 April and conclude with the declaration of the results on 4 June.

In an interview with The Times of India newspaper, Mr Modi said he has witnessed “unprecedented display of love, affection and support” for his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party at his campaign rallies.

This makes him confident, he added, that his ruling National Democratic Alliance is “on track to cross the 400 mark”, far more than the 272 seats needed for majority in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha.

“The people have seen what we can deliver and we believe that we can deliver and we believe that the people want a better tomorrow and they know that a vote for BJP means a vote towards development,” Mr Modi told the newspaper.

Mr Modi, who hasn’t held a press conference in his 10 years as prime minister or taken unscripted questions from journalists, has given just a handful of interviews to major newspapers in this election season, mainly targeting the opposition Congress party.

In these interviews and in his campaign speeches, he has been accused of lying and spreading sectarian hatred, especially against the Muslim minority. India’s Election Commission has confirmed it is investigating whether comments made in a rally about “infiltrators” and “those who have many children” constitute hate speech towards Muslims.

“In the history of India, no prime minister has lowered the dignity of his post as much as Modiji has,” Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said.

A motorcyclist drives past a poster of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, ahead of India’s national election (AFP via Getty)

The news website Scroll analysed Mr Modi’s speeches delivered over the course of five days and said they constituted a “catalogue of lies”. The website found that the prime minister overstated the success of his party’s welfare schemes and used “divisive lies” to attack the Congress party’s campaign promises.

Mr Modi has, for example, falsely claimed that the Congress party’s manifesto pledges to take wealth from Hindus in the form of inheritance tax and distribute it to minorities.

Scroll noted that even Mr Modi’s dog whistle reference to Muslims – “those who have many children” – was inaccurate as the fertility rate of Indian Muslims was declining faster than that of all other religious communities.

The Congress’s manifesto does not promise any welfare measure specifically for Muslims. In fact, it does not mention the word “Muslim” at all.

Muslims offer Eid prayers marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan in Mumbai, India (AP)

In a speech in Aligarh in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Mr Modi claimed that Congress’s former president Rahul Gandhi “has said if the party comes to power a survey will be conducted to find out how much income, property, wealth, houses you have” and that it will “seize and redistribute the property”.

The opposition party’s manifesto does indeed pledge to redistribute the country’s wealth but not from Hindus to Muslims as Mr Modi implied. “Congress will establish an authority to monitor the distribution to the poor of government land and surplus land under the land ceiling Acts,” the document states.

At the manifesto’s launch on 6 April, Mr Gandhi addressed the question of wealth distribution saying that the Congress “will do an X-ray of the country” so that the underprivileged get their fair share. He did not mention private wealth.

“Backward classes, Dalits, Adivasis, poor people belonging to the general category, and minorities will get to know what their share is in the country,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra arrive to file his nomination papers for India's general elections (AFP via Getty)

In a speech on 25 April in Morena in the heartland state of Madhya Pradesh, Mr Modi spoke about inheritance and wealth taxes, a hot campaign issue with the ruling party and the opposition accusing each other of being in favour of imposing them.

He declared, without evidence, that when former prime minister Indira Gandhi died, her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi abolished the inheritance tax “to inherit her property, to ensure the government didn’t get the money”. Rajiv Gandhi is Rahul Gandhi’s late father.

It was an estate duty on a deceased person’s assets that the Rajiv Gandhi government had abolished in 1985, not inheritance tax. The policy would apply from 16 March 1985. Indira Gandhi had been assassinated on 31 October 1984.

Mr Modi went on to falsely claim that the Congress would implement inheritance tax if voted to power.

The Congress has announced no such plan. The party manifesto only promises to “address the growing inequality of wealth and income through suitable changes in policies”.

Senior leaders of Mr Modi’s party have followed him in amplifying sectarian bigotry as well as falsehoods about the Congress’s manifesto even as they have accused opposition leaders of spreading lies.

The ruling party’s president, JP Nadda, accused the Congress of “reflecting the ideology of the Muslim League” in its campaign promises. The Muslim League was a political party in British India that advocated for the interests of Muslims and played a pivotal role in the establishment of Pakistan.

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is also from Mr Modi’s party, said the Congress’s manifesto seemingly aimed to serve Pakistan rather than India.