Hard-fought Delhi polls set for Feb 8

New Delhi will hold elections next month, officials said yesterday, in a key popularity test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party as it reels from nationwide protests over a new citizenship law. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party swept to a second term last year in national elections but the Indian capital has been governed since 2013 by the left-wing grassroots Common Man Party (AAP). Under pressure from a weak economy, the BJP has also fared badly in a string of recent regional elections, most recently in Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, and in Jharkhand in the east. New legislation loosening citizenship rules for persecuted minorities, but not if they are Muslim, has sparked almost a month of protests and violence that has killed more than 25 people.