Lok Sabha elections: World’s largest polls begin

Polling officials with EVMs and other election material leave for poll duty ahead of Lok Sabha elections, in Bastar district, Chhattisgarh.

166 million people across 21 states and Union territories will step into 187,000 polling stations on Friday and vote in the first and largest phase of the general elections, kicking off the world’s largest democratic exercise that will span the next six weeks and see nearly a billion citizens exercise their franchise.

The first phase of the Lok Sabha elections will be guarded by 1.8 million personnel and decide the fate of 1,625 candidates – from the snow-capped mountains of Uttarakhand and the rolling vales of Arunachal Pradesh to the southernmost tip of the mainland at Kanniyakumari and the dusty deserts of Rajasthan.

84 million men and 82.3 million women, in addition to 11,371 transgender people, will exercise their franchise on Friday. Among them will be 3.5 million first-time voters and 35 million people between the ages of 20 and 29. Nine Union ministers, two former chief ministers and a former governor are among the contestants.

“The commission considers that it is the time now for voters to act. It has with all sincerity appealed to voters to step out of their homes, go to the polling station and vote with responsibility and pride,” said the Election Commission of India (ECI) in a statement.

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The results will be announced on June 4.

Lok Sabha elections are a mind-boggling affair in a country where the voting population is larger than the combined populations of the US and the UK, Brazil, Russia, Japan, and France. The polls will take place in seven phases — on April 19, 26, May 7, 13, 20, 25, and June 1 – a testament to the daunting logistical and security challenges in overseeing an electorate stretching from the Himalayas in the north to deserts in the west, insurgent-infested tropical jungles in the centre and the coastal plains in the south. ECI officials have used 41 helicopters, 84 special trains and nearly 100,000 vehicles to ferry polling, security personnel and electronic voting machines to inhospitable heights and desolate constituencies.

Along with the elections to the Lok Sabha, assembly elections will be held in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Arunachal Pradesh. In terms of span, this will be the longest general elections since India’s maiden Lok Sabha polls that lasted four months – from October 1951 to February 1952.

“The Election Commission of India has made all preparations to welcome voters to the biggest festival of democracy that any nation has witnessed, the elections to the 18th Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies in four states that start off with Phase 1,” the statement said.

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The elections will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi seek a third consecutive term, which will make him only the second person in independent India after Jawaharlal Nehru to achieve the feat.

Throughout this frenetic poll campaign, leaders of both the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have pitched narratives that bridge deep and complex divisions of caste, class, religion and region. In the last general elections in 2019, the BJP rode on a wave of Modi’s pan-Indian popularity and nationalistic fervour to a once-in-a-generation majority. The party won 303 seats, and along with its allies comprising the NDA captured 336 seats in the 543-member Lower House. The Congress, saddled by the weight of past corruption and the lack of a charismatic leader, was reduced to 52 seats.

This time, the BJP has set a target of 370 seats and 400 for the NDA on the back of welfare politics, development, and the Hindutva plank. Former allies have returned to the NDA ahead of the polls, as the BJP looks to defend its fortress in northern India and make inroads in eastern and southern India.

The INDIA bloc hopes to cut into the BJP’s electoral track record and broad social coalition, keep its southern citadel intact and stave off the BJP’s raids into western and eastern India.

In 2019, the general elections recorded a turnout of 67%, the highest since the first election in 1951-52. The first election process in independent India in 1951 was a months-long process that spilled over into 1952. The turnout was just 45% as the authorities struggled to reach remote areas in a country where the vast majority of the electorate was illiterate. Since then, ECI has instituted a number of innovations, becoming a model for major democracies and extending its expertise to help conduct polls in countries such as Cameroon, Afghanistan and the Philippines.The women’s turnout in 2019 outstripped that of men — 67.18% to 67.01% — for the first time.

Lok Sabha elections phase 1: 9 Union ministers, 2 ex-CMs & ex-governor in poll fray. Check list

The first phase will see all seats from Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep and Puducherry go to the polls.

The largest chunk of seats will be in Tamil Nadu, where all 39 constituencies are going to the polls. The INDIA bloc holds 38 out of these seats and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led grouping in the state will hope for a repeat performance. Battling the ruling coalition is its traditional Dravidian rival, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and a resurgent BJP that has put in enormous energy and resources into a state that is considered a bridge too far for the party. The AIADMK, which left the BJP alliance in 2023, targeted the DMK in the state and the BJP at the Centre for poor governance.

All five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand, where the BJP and Congress are in direct contest, will also go to the polls. The BJP swept the state in 2014 and 2019.

Focus will also be on the 12 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, where the other 13 will go to the polls in the next phase. The BJP had swept Rajasthan in 2019 and is contesting all seats. The Congress, on the other hand, is contesting 22 and left three for its alliance partners Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP).

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In Uttar Pradesh, eight seats – Saharanpur, Bijnor, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur, and Pilibhit – are going to polls in the western part of the state.

In Madhya Pradesh, six of the 29 Lok Sabha seats are going to polls. In Bihar, this number stands at four, and in West Bengal, three. In the Northeast, 14 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats including five in Assam, go to polls.

In a video message to party workers, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday told party workers that this is no ordinary election but one to save the Constitution. “This is not an ordinary election, this is an election to save the Constitution and democracy,” Gandhi said in his message delivered in both Hindi and English.

The BJP-RSS are against the idea of India, Gandhi said, adding the Congress will defeat the BJP and its ideology.

Senior BJP leader and Union home minister Amit Shah told PTI the BJP-led NDA will achieve its goal of winning more than 400 seats. “Be it the East, West, North or South, the atmosphere in the country suggests that we will get more than 400 seats. The BJP’s performance in south India will be the best-ever this time,” he said.

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