NEW DELHI - India’s frontrunner for prime minister Narendra Modi urged voters to turn out in record numbers to throw the scandal-plagued Congress party out of power as a bitter, marathon election campaign neared its end.
Modi, from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made his final appeal to voters before the last round of voting on Monday in the world’s biggest election, which is expected to catapult the Hindu nationalist hardliner to power.
‘People are tired of false promises, corruption and the same old tape-recorded messages ridden with dynastic references only to hide one’s own failure,’ Modi said in a blog late Saturday. ‘They want a better tomorrow and NDA is the only alliance that can provide this change,’ Modi said, referring to a BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coalition.
‘I urge all those voting in the final phase to vote in record numbers, especially the youth,’ he said. Politicians were barred from making speeches and taking to the hustings on Sunday, one day before 66 million people are eligible to cast their ballots in 41 seats in the final stage of staggered voting.
Campaigning ended on Saturday in the five-week election that is likely to see Congress - whose campaign is headed by Rahul Gandhi, scion of India’s most famous political dynasty - ousted from power after 10 years. Opinion polls show voters have turned against Congress over massive graft scandals, spiralling inflation and a sharp economic slowdown during its two terms heading a left-leaning coalition government since 2004.
The BJP is expected to win the most seats in the 543-member parliament but will likely fall short of an outright majority, meaning it will need to forge a coalition with regional parties. Modi, 63, the son of a tea-stall owner who has pledged development, investment and jobs to revive the struggling economy, sought to strike a note of unity in his last message to voters before campaigning ended.
‘We can decide whether we want to fight each other or we want to unite to fight poverty? The former will lead us nowhere while the latter will take our nation to greater heights,’ he said in his blog. The campaign has sparked claims by Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders that Modi will widen divisions between the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities if elected. Although popular, Modi is a deeply polarising figure due to his Hindu nationalist past and allegations that he failed swiftly to curb deadly 2002 anti-Muslim riots.
The riots that swept Gujarat during his early years as chief minister of the prosperous western state left at least 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, dead. Gandhi, 43, said on Saturday that Modi ‘only wants to divide people, make people fight each other’. He was speaking during final campaigning, in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi which votes on Monday.
Gandhi, whose family has produced three prime ministers, sought to muster a final show of strength in Varanasi, which has become a focus of national attention between two star candidates.
Modi is battling in Varanasi against anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal, who vaulted to national prominence as leader of the upstart Aam Aadmi - Common Man - Party. His campaign has resonated with voters angry at endemic corruption in government and in everyday life.
Congress, which has dominated Indian politics since independence in 1947, is given little chance in Varanasi. Gandhi, whose lacklustre leadership of the Congress campaign has drawn criticism, admitted the BJP has been better at ‘marketing itself’.  But he told the Hindustan newspaper that Congress was better able to deliver programmes particularly to tens of millions of Indians living in poverty. ‘I am confident that the voters will give a mandate to an inclusive, fair and unifying government that the Congress party offers,’ he told the Hindi-language newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.