In April, as India was preparing for the first phase of its mammoth seven-stage national election that will conclude with results on June 4, pollsters asked voters what issues they were most concerned about.
Jobs and inflation ranked the highest in their responses. But as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have tried to defend their decade-long record of governance in the face of criticism from the opposition led by the Congress party, they have also been accused by critics of promoting tropes that, for a long time, have been anti-Muslim dog whistles for the country’s far-right.
The opposition has accused Modi of hate speech against Muslims, and India’s election commission – the independent authority tasked with holding the country’s polls – has sent a warning to the BJP party chief about the PM’s comments. Election laws do not allow the overt use of religion to garner votes. But Modi has denied that he engaged in hate speech.
Al Jazeera fact-checked four claims about Muslims – India’s largest religious minority, with a population of 200 million people – that have dominated the election discourse in recent days.
This story was originally published in aljazeera.com. Read the full story here.
