India election: opposition rivals turned allies hope to unseat Modi in Delhi

Two key opposition parties are hailing their alliance in India’s capital, Delhi, and hoping they can deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s and his party a third consecutive clean sweep of the region in the ongoing elections.

Delhi, the administrative heart of the country, is a high stakes battle between former bitter rivals, the Indian National Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, now allied against Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress party is contesting three of Delhi’s seven constituencies, with the AAP fielding candidates in the other four.

“In the symbol of the hand, there is a broom,” Rahul Gandhi, a top leader in the Congress party, told supporters at a political rally last week in Delhi, referring to the electoral symbols of the two parties.

Gandhi added that only by voting for the alliance can the country’s constitution be preserved. “All of us and our party workers have come together to protect the constitution,” he said.

The opposition has claimed that Modi’s calls for a 400-seat parliamentary super majority are signs that the BJP intends to amend the constitution and remove references to secularism and ditch the country’s expansive affirmative action programmes. Modi and the BJP have denied those charges and described them as scaremongering.

The opposition alliance recently received a shot in the arm after Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi chief minister and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, or the Common Man’s Party, was released on bail to allow him to campaign. He has been accused of corruption in a now defunct liquor license scheme, charges he’s denied and has said are politically motivated. A popular leader, Kejriwal stormed to power in Delhi after winning two consecutive legislative elections and shares control of the capital with the federal government.