India opposition alliance fractures as support for Narendra Modi soars

India’s best chance of challenging Narendra Modi is disintegrating months before national elections, as a broad but fragile opposition coalition breaks down over internal rivalries, defections and arrests and intimidation by law enforcement.

The alliance of centre-left and regional parties, which was unveiled last July under the patriotic banner of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, or INDIA, presented itself as a unity front to prevent India’s powerful prime minister and his majoritarian Hindu Bharatiya Janata party from coasting to a third term in power.

But seven months later, talks among INDIA’s more than two dozen parties on seat-sharing — tactical agreements to avoid competing in some constituencies — have made little headway, while Modi has enjoyed a surge of support after he inaugurated a sprawling Hindu temple complex in Ayodhya.

The opposition has also suffered the desertion of two critical figureheads: Mamata Banerjee, head of the All India Trinamool Congress, said last month that her party would independently field candidates, and Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, India’s third most populous state, jumped ship to ally with the BJP. 

Elsewhere, officials have been targeted by raids, arrests and corruption investigations that the opposition says are politically motivated.

“The INDIA alliance is collapsing very rapidly,” said Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst and contributing editor with the Indian Express newspaper. “The BJP have a formidable election machinery unlike any in the world, a popular leader who has been 10 years in power, and most importantly, they have a hunger for power.”

India does not publish reliable opinion polls and its electoral commission has not set a date…