Good morning. The biggest election in the world started on 19 April, and it is only halfway through. There are 969 million voters in India, 2,600 parties, 15 million election officials and one polling booth situated more than 15,000 feet high in the Himalayan mountains – but one party, and one man, sit confidently at the top of the pile.
While the BJP and prime minister, Narendra Modi, are widely expected to secure a third term in office when the votes are counted next month, the contest so far has not all been smooth sailing. Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s Delhi correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, is about the economic challenges to Modi’s hopes of securing a massive majority, why he has leaned into blatant Islamophobia on the campaign trail, and the opposition weaknesses that mean he is likely to win anyway. Here are the headlines.
