"The BJP v democracy' India's opposition alliance cries foul as election nears

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.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Instead, he is detained in a 14ft-by8ft cell in Delhi's Tihar jail and is 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 in jail.

The AAP said the arrests, which all relate to money-laundering charges, were part of an open vendetta by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and were a political conspiracy intended to "crush" the party before the election. Voting begins on 19 April.

Atishi Singh, an AAP minister, said: "The BJP hoped that AAP would disintegrate after Arvind Kejriwal was 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 expand, 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."