India Accusations of candidate intimidation as BJP seeks huge wins

When the people of Gujarat cast their votes last week in India's six-week-long election, one constituency in the state stood silent. There were no polling stations or impatient queues of people, and no one with the telltale inky finger. In Surat, the outcome was already decided.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Aakash Hassan

Mukesh Dalal, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), won by default after every other candidate was disqualified or dropped out.

For the first time in 73 years, Surat's candidate was appointed, not elected. Surat is not the only Gujarat constituency where swaths of candidates opposing the BJP have suddenly withdrawn from the race. In Gandhinagar, where the home minister and prime minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man, Amit Shah, is running, 16 opposition candidates dropped out before last Tuesday's voting.

Gujarat is likely to be an easy win for the BJP, which is expected to return Modi to power for a third term. It is Modi's home state and the stronghold of his party, which has won every state election here since 1995 and in the last general election in 2019 won all 26 seats.