Gandhi v Modi: crunch time for Congress as India prepares to vote

And yet in the run-up to the general election, which starts on April 19th, Mr Gandhi has found the fire in his belly. That was one takeaway when The Economist joined the final leg of a 6,300-mile journey across India that he finished last month. In rallies across the western state of Maharashtra, he denounced Narendra Modi, the prime minister, as a threat to democracy. He castigated the tycoons who dominate its economy. And he deplored its rampant inequality. “There’s no space for you in this country,” he told one crowd in (now fluent) Hindi. “I don’t understand why you’re not doing anything about it.”