{"id":64032,"date":"2024-05-14T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T02:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/may\/14\/bjp-accused-intimidation-india-elections-gujarat"},"modified":"2024-05-14T11:00:22","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T02:00:22","slug":"pressured-to-withdraw-bjp-accused-of-intimidation-tactics-in-india-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=64032","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pressured to withdraw\u2019: BJP accused of intimidation tactics in India polls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Opposition say ruling party undermining democracy by using police to harass candidates into not contesting in elections<\/p>\n<p>When the people of Gujarat cast their votes last week in India\u2019s six-week-long election, there was one constituency in the state that stood silent. There were no polling stations or impatient queues of people, and no one with the tell-tale inky finger. In Surat, no voting was necessary \u2013 the outcome was already decided.<\/p>\n<p>Mukesh Dalal, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), won the seat by default after every other candidate was either disqualified or dropped out of the race. It was the first time in 73 years that Surat\u2019s candidate was appointed, not elected.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/may\/14\/bjp-accused-intimidation-india-elections-gujarat\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opposition say ruling party undermining democracy by using police to harass candidates into not contesting in electionsWhen the people of Gujarat cast their votes last week in India\u2019s six-week-long election, there was one constituency in the state that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4238,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,433,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64033,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64032\/revisions\/64033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}