India began voting in the fifth phase of its mammoth general elections on Monday, with seats in the financial capital Mumbai and the opposition's Gandhi family bastions set to be sealed in the last few legs of the seven-phase vote. Monday's phase has the least number of seats being contested, with 89.5 million voters set to choose representatives for 49 seats. Sonia Gandhi, Congress party chief and former lawmaker from Raebareli, made an emotional appeal to voters asking them to vote for her son in a region that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has dominated in the last 10 years. Modi has repeatedly accused the Congress party of planning to extend welfare benefits to Muslims at the expense of disadvantaged tribal groups and Hindu castes, a claim the Congress has denied. In a recent television interview aired after the fourth phase, Modi said it was his resolve to "not do Hindu-Muslim (in politics)".

Source: Hindustan Times May 20, 2024 05:08 UTC