With less than two weeks to go before India’s election begins, Arvind Kejriwal, one of the country’s most prominent opposition leaders, would usually be out on the campaign trail. Instead, he is detained in a 14ft by 8ft cell in Delhi’s Tihar jail – said to be spending his days sweeping, reading, doing yoga – and running Delhi’s government from behind bars.
Kejriwal, who has been the chief minister of Delhi since 2015, is not the only leader from his opposition Aam Aadmi party (AAP) to be locked up in Tihar. Alongside him is his former deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, who has been incarcerated for more than a year. The former health minister, Satyendar Jain, has been there since May 2022.
On 2 April, another AAP minister, Sanjay Singh, was finally granted bail by the supreme court after spending six months behind bars.
AAP called the arrests, which all relate to money-laundering charges, a political conspiracy and an open vendetta by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government to “crush” the party before the election. Voting will begin on 19 April, with the BJP and AAP going head to head for seats including those in Delhi.
Atishi Singh, an AAP minister, said: “The BJP hoped that AAP will disintegrate after Arvind Kejriwal is arrested because the entire senior leadership is behind bars.”
Pundits have predicted that the prime minister, Narendra Modi, will easily win a third term, and the BJP has set its sights on an even greater majority than in 2019. As the crackdown on the opposition has appeared to recently ramp up, analysts and opponents have warned this could be the most one-sided election in India’s history.
“The BJP has the upper hand, no doubt about it,” said Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, a professor of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University. “It is leaving no stone unturned in using all the instruments, which are now under its control, to go after the opposition.”
Escalating attacks
In the same week as Kejriwal’s arrest, Congress, India’s largest opposition party, claimed that the central tax authority had frozen millions in its bank accounts, crippling its ability to campaign. In a press conference, Congress leaders accused the BJP government of using “tax terrorism” to disable the party before the polls.
A money laundering investigation was also opened into opposition MP Mahua Moitra, who is one of the most outspoken critics of Modi. Kejriwal, Sisodia, Jain and Moitra have all denied the allegations against them and said they are politically motivated.
While hundreds of such cases have been filed against opposition MPs and leaders since the BJP came to power in 2014, the recent escalation has provoked alarm about just how free and fair the election will be. Western countries, usually cautious about criticising India, have voiced concern, with the US envoy calling for a “fair, transparent” process for the arrested leaders.
The cases against the opposition prompted Shahid Siddiqui, a veteran politician from Rashtriya Lok Dal – a political party that recently joined the BJP alliance – to quit in protest last week, stating that he had “never seen anything like this in my four decades in politics”.
“I can’t stand silent while our democracy and democratic institutions are facing a dangerous attack and the opposition is being targeted,” said Siddiqui. “It’s an extremely dangerous situation. If you can’t have free and fair elections, that means the country won’t have a functioning democracy.”
The BJP has denied any role in the arrests and cases, with Modi stating that the federal agency conducting the investigations, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), is independent.
Syed Zafar Islam, a BJP national spokesperson, called the allegations “baseless” and stressed that the ED was “completely independent” and could not bring a case unless it had sufficient evidence to show in court. “Whenever these parties are staring at defeat, they start talking about threats to democracy,” said Islam.
The BJP is not the first government to use anti-crime agencies to harangue political opponents. Former Congress-led regimes were also seen to weaponise India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, with the BJP colloquially referring to it as the “Congress Bureau of Investigation”.
But opponents say the ED has become weaponised over the past 10 years, with 95% of its political cases filed against the opposition. In the case filed against the AAP leaders, no trace has yet been found of the alleged billions in kickbacks and bribes they are accused of taking from alcohol licensing deals.
The ED declined to comment on individual cases.
Opposition infighting
Political observers say some of the blame for the weakness of India’s opposition can be laid at its own doorstep. Congress – which ruled India for decades but is now in power in only three states – is still led by the Gandhi family dynasty, leading to accusations it is elitist, nepotistic and lacks proper leadership.
A coalition of 27 opposition parties, including Congress and AAP, united in 2023 under the acronym INDIA with the purpose of collectively fighting Modi in the election. However, party leaders have been accused of prioritising individual interests, slow decision making and unresolved divisions over whether Congress should be at the helm.
Congress leaders however, insisted that the INDIA alliance remained united, with Gandhi stating this week that the bloc was collectively “fighting an ideological election”.
Political imbalance
Indian political scientist Rajeev Bhargava said a big issue in the political landscape was the lack of independence in key institutions, from the media to the judiciary. Mainstream media are now seen by many to be a mouthpiece for the government, while the independence of the police and the judiciary has repeatedly been called into question.
“The fundamental weakness of the opposition stems from the failures of our institutions to maintain their integrity and instead completely surrender to the government in power,” said Bhargava.
“Never before have agencies like the ED been used in such an unfettered political manner. There’s no longer a separation of powers, the executive controls everything, so there’s nothing the opposition can do to stop them.”
The opposition has also systematically been undermined by a stream of leaders crossing over to the BJP after being put under investigation by the ED or other agencies. An investigation by the Indian Express found that since 2014, 25 prominent politicians facing corruption cases had joined the BJP. In 23 of the cases, they got a reprieve after making the jump: a process that Congress calls the “BJP washing machine”.
At a press conference, Atishi Singh, the Delhi AAP minister, accused the BJP of trying this tactic on her, saying she had been warned to join the BJP or be arrested in the same case that put Kejriwal behind bars. The BJP has denied the claim.
Bhargava said that, given the wealth of the BJP compared with other parties, there was “a powerful combination of fear and money” behind these defections. “If opposition leaders can’t turn to the police or the judiciary or other institutions, then there’s little to stop them being left to rot in jail. So today, most people are trying to save their own skin.”
Nonetheless, India’s opposition remains resilient in several states, particularly through powerful regional parties in east and south India, where the BJP has failed to take hold.
Derek O’Brien, a parliamentary leader from India’s third-largest opposition party, Trinamool Congress, which governs West Bengal and is part of the INDIA alliance, said it had already filed “dozens of complaints” to the election commission.
“All we are calling for is a level playing field,” said O’Brien.“This election will be the BJP versus democracy.”
Aakash Hassan contributed reporting
