India's Hindu hardliners pray for Trump's election victory after attack
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A Hindu hardline group in India prayed for the enemies of Donald Trump to be "wiped out" on Tuesday, days after a failed assassination attempt on the US presidential candidate.
Trump has a sizable following among right-wing Hindu groups, who see the populist former US leader and White House hopeful a kindred spirit aligned with their hostility towards Muslims.
Their adulation has been bolstered by the warm relationship between him and Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself accused of discriminating against India's largest religious minority.
Around a dozen members of the Hindu Army activist group sat inside a temple in the capital New Delhi to conduct a ritual around an open fire, chanting prayers for Trump's victory in November elections.
An idol of the elephant-headed Ganesh, the Hindu deity of luck and wisdom, was placed next to pictures of Trump to grant him good fortune.
"We prayed that the enemies of Donald Trump must get wiped out and bestow upon him special blessings," Vishnu Gupta, the head of the group, told AFP.
"He should win the upcoming elections with a huge mandate so that humanity is protected... (and) believers of radical Islam are destroyed while India and America move forward towards progress and prosperity," he added.
The little-known group has celebrated Trump's birthday every year since he entered politics and also prayed for his victory during his last election contest against President Joe Biden.
Recent polls in the United States show the Republican billionaire's chances of beating Biden in November have surged since the assassination attempt on him last weekend.
Trump was confirmed as the presumptive Republican nominee at the party's convention in Milwaukee on Monday, sporting a bandaged ear from a wound sustained in the attack.
He and Modi forged a strong bonhomie while in office, with the pair taking the stage together before more than 100,000 people in India during Trump's last term in office.