The world’s largest ever election is under way in India as voters begin casting their votes in the first phase of the country’s marathon six-week poll.
The election is widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a second term.
Polls are open in 91 seats, about a sixth of the total in the Indian parliament’s lower house. Six more voting days are to be had before counting begins on 23 May.
Hundreds of millions of Indians are expected to vote and of India’s 1.3 billion population about 900 million people are eligible, which represents around 10 per cent of the world’s population.
Whoever wins will take charge of a fast-developing country with an economy on track to surpass the UK’s to become the world’s fifth largest.
Modi’s main opposition party is the Congress, led by Rahul Ghandi. His grandmother Indira was India’s first female leader and his grandfather Jawarhlal Nehru was the country’s founding leader. His father Rajiv Gandhi also served as PM.
India’s parliament has two houses: the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
In this election, the Lok Sabha is the important one. It has 543 elected seats and any party will need a minimum of 272 seats in order to form a government.
Whichever party wins the majority of seats gets to choose the PM.
Alternatively, a coalition can be formed if no one party wins a majority, as was the outcome of the 2004 elections.
Because of the sheer scale of the process it will be weeks before we know the results.
Counting of the votes begins on May 23.
