INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday vowed to spend more than US$1.4 trillion on new infrastructure over five years to create much-needed jobs and to pursue his nationalist agenda if he wins an election that starts this week.

Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also promised US$300 billion for the country’s hard-pressed farmers and rural development as it went all out to stop voters being tempted by opposition parties in the world’s biggest election that runs from Thursday until May 19.

The BJP’s big-spending manifesto was accompanied by promises to keep its Hindu bedrock behind the party that won a landslide victory in 2014 but has lost key state elections in recent months.

It made a new pledge to scrap a law that gives special privileges — such as preventing outsiders from buying property — to residents of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.

Modi’s party also said it was committed to building a grand Hindu temple in place of a Muslim mosque demolished by Hindu mobs in the city of Ayodhya in 1992.

The rights of outsiders in Kashmir and the temple promise have become flashpoint issues between Hindus and Muslims in recent years. (SD-Agencies)