SHEER SIZE AND DIVERSE GEOGRAPHY
India’s large size and varied landscape, ranging from Indian Ocean archipelagoes to Himalayan mountains, are daunting also. S Jaishankar, foreign minister, last year spoke of the problems of “navigating through industrial stretches, remote villages, and challenging physical landscapes”, as well as reaching senior citizens and differently empowered voters.  ,
At a new press conference, the Election Commission of India said it was intent on reaching out to anyone, including 18 million first- time citizens, 197 million citizens in their 20s, and 48, 000 trans people qualified to vote.  ,
In India, voting takes weeks to complete is not fresh.
The second post- independence election held between 1951 and 1952 required” often atrociously hard” challenges, with bridges built to cross rivers and marine vessels deployed , to take political rolls to booths on small islands, according to Ramachandra Guha’s book India After Gandhi.  , The vote took a record four months.  ,
After that, elections in India slowed down. In 1980, when Indira Gandhi returned to power after a three- year hiatus, voting took just four days.
More recently, however, Indian elections have been getting longer: The 2019 vote was held in seven phases and took 39 days. This year’s will take 44.  ,