CHENNAI: India began voting on Friday ( Apr 19 ) in the world’s largest election as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a historic third term in office on the back of growth, welfare, his personal popularity and Hindu nationalism.
An alliance of two hundred opposition parties is challenging Modi with promises of more affirmative actions, more handouts, and what they call the need to keep political institutions from Modi’s authoritarian rule in the vote.
At the height of summer, the giant exercise involving about one billion voters will be distributed across the world’s most populous nation in seven phases. Seats may be counted on Jun 1 and the deadline is Jun 1.
166 million citizens will cast ballots in 102 of the seven stages on Friday, including those in Tamil Nadu in the north, Arunachal Pradesh in the Himalayas and Uttar Pradesh, the state with the highest population in the northeast.
Due to tight security, including older people who needed assistance getting to the polling booths, citizens began lining up outside polling locations little before they opened at 7am.
” Modi may come back to authority, because apart from the spiritual force, his other job, including on safety and security is good,” said Abdul Sattar, 32, a Muslim vote in Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana, about 100km from Delhi.
Mohammed Shabbir, a dad of eight and a 60-year-old pilot, said that because none of his babies have regular work, poverty was his main concern.
Because even the Hindus are impacted by a lack of jobs, he said, populism is not an issue in this poll.