NEW DELHI, Apr 18: India is set to vote in the worlds largest ever general election, setting the stage for a mammoth exercise in democracy with nearly a billion people eligible to head to the polls across just over six weeks.
Indians will be voting for 543 seats in the 545-seat lower house of parliament, called the Lok Sabha, with two other seats nominated by the countrys president.
The high-voltage campaign for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls ended on Wednesday evening as the top leaders of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc made a last-ditch effort to woo voters, even though most opinion polls favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi to return to power for a third consecutive tenure in office since he became PM for the first time in May, 2014.
Home to more than 1.4 billion people, about 969 million are eligible to cast their vote in the upcoming election - more than the populations of North America and the European Union combined.
This means about 12% of the worlds population will head to the polls, motivated by a range of issues from unemployment and welfare benefits to infrastructure and upholding democracy. The number of women registered to vote has increased by 40 million since the previous election in 2019, according to the election commission, while more than 20 million voters between ages 18-29 have been added to the electorate. —Agencies
