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Hindu extremist Pragya Singh Thakur at a BJP meeting in Bhopal on April 17, 2019. Mujeeb Faruqui / Hindustan Times via Getty Images

The election campaign took on a new twist with the nomination by BJP, the ruling Hindu party, of a controversial candidate in the Bhopal constituency. A Hindu far-right figure, Pragya Singh Thakur, is suspected of involvement in a bomb attack targeting the Muslim community, which left six dead and around 100 wounded in 2008.

With our correspondent in New Delhi , Antoine Guinard

" Hemant Karkare is dead because I cast a spell on him while I was in prison ." This sentence of Pragya Singh Thakur to the former head of the anti-terrorist police scandalized the entire political class and the media. Except, maybe, the BJP.

The Hindu nationalist party is embarrassed after this insult to the policeman, killed in the deadly assault of a terrorist commando in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and considered a martyr and a hero in India.

Pragya Thakur was quick to retract in the face of the media storm. The BJP is trying to limit the damage, claiming that this unfortunate phrase was explained by " years of physical and mental torture she had suffered in prison ."

Hemant Karkare was in charge of the investigation which led to the arrest and imprisonment for nine years of Pragya Thakur, accused of being involved in bombings in the locality of Malegaon, in the western part of the country. India in 2008.

Released on bail in 2017 for health reasons, this Hindu extremist was nominated by the BJP in the Bhopal constituency for legislative elections last week. Several people, including the father of one of the victims of the Malegaon bombing, appealed to the court to ban him from running.