<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Thousands of supporters thronged India’s most prominent opposition leader Rahul Gandhi during a campaign procession today ahead of his formal nomination for national elections starting this month.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Gandhi is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of former prime ministers, but has already suffered two landslide defeats against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.</div><div><br></div><div>He is the leading figure in an opposition alliance fighting an uphill battle in this year’s polls against Modi, who remains broadly popular after a decade in power and is widely expected to comfortably retain office.</div><div><br></div><div>But Gandhi was given a rousing reception in Wayanad, a picturesque town in the southern state of Kerala, with a huge crowd gathering to cheer his arrival.</div><div><br></div><div>“I don’t think of you as my electorate but as my family,” he told the large gathering from atop a truck, flanked by his younger sister Priyanka and cadres from his Congress party.</div><div><br></div><div>The 53-year-old formally filed his nomination to recontest Wayanad with the local election office after the rally.</div><div><br></div><div>Gandhi was first elected to the constituency in 2019 but was briefly disqualified from parliament last year after his conviction for criminal libel in a case filed by a member of Modi’s party.</div><div><br></div><div>He was reinstated pending a Supreme Court appeal but his decision to recontest the seat has caused some friction within the opposition alliance.</div><div><br></div><div>His main challenger is firebrand leftist Annie Raja of the Communist Party of India, a fellow member of the bloc.</div><div><br></div><div>Her allies have criticised Gandhi for not choosing to fight in another seat against an established candidate from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).</div><div><br></div><div>“The entire country should discuss the inappropriateness of this,” Kerala’s chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, a member of Raja’s party, told reporters yesterday.</div><div><br></div><div>Nearly a billion Indians will vote to elect a new government in six-week-long parliamentary elections starting on April 19. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>