NEW DELHI: India’s national election is not expected for a year, but the campaign has already begun. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which has resisted naming a candidate from among its many leaders, began coalescing around a successful, deeply polarising, politician who launched a scathing attack against the “termites” of the ruling Congress Party.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, long assumed to Congress’ candidate, hinted he might not want the job after all, even as he laid the groundwork for the coming vote by ploughing through non-stop meetings with coalition allies and party lawmakers.

All of this portends a long campaign that could distract a government struggling to revive India’s sputtering economic growth. “A year goes by quicker than you realise, so you have to put things in place,” said Sidharth Bhatia, a political analyst. Congress, which won the last two national elections, appears especially vulnerable this time around. Economic growth that reached nine per cent two years ago has plummeted to an expected five per cent in the fiscal year ending this month.    And the ruling party has suffered a barrage of corruption scandals, the latest involving allegations of bribes and kickbacks in a $750 million contract for 12 luxury helicopters to ferry top leaders around the country. Amid the uncertainty, Gandhi — who would be the fourth generation in his family to be prime minister — opened the door, just slightly, to the possibility he might not want the office the party has been preparing him to assume since it took back power in 2004.

“The prime minister’s post is not my priority. I believe in long-term politics,” he said, according to local media. That raised speculation he might opt for an arrangement similar to the one his mother, Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi, has with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: Singh runs the government, while Sonia Gandhi is the power behind the throne.

The chief minister of Gujarat has been praised as an efficient manager who has brought high growth and development to his state. He has attracted Indians hopeful he can bring order to the chaotic country. But the Hindu nationalist politician also stands accused of looking the other way in 2002 when Hindu mobs rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods in his state, leaving more than 1,100 people dead. He has never expressed remorse for the violence. The incident led the United States to refuse him a diplomatic visa in 2005.

Nevertheless, Modi was greeted with a standing ovation and chants for him to be prime minister at a recent national party meeting.

The normally soft-spoken Singh hit back in Parliament, saying the opposition has been recklessly optimistic in the past, including in the 2009 election when it ran an “iron man” against the “lamb that Manmohan Singh is”. —AP