INDIA’S COLOSSAL GENERAL ELECTION: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

Voting in India’s six-week election begins today, with 968 million people eligible to cast their ballots in the world’s biggest democratic vote.

AFP explains how the poll is conducted and what is likely to happen.

HOW DO PEOPLE VOTE?

All Indian citizens aged 18 and above are eligible to vote — that’s 968 million people, according to the election commission. Turnout during the last national elections was more than 67%, with nearly 615 million people voting. India uses electronic voting machines that allow for faster counting of ballots. The election commission says there is no way to connect to the machines remotely and no way to compromise the results. Election officials travel by foot, road, trains, helicopters, boats and occasionally camels and elephants to set up polling stations in remote locations. They are sometimes accompanied by security forces in areas with a history of insurgent violence.

WHYWILLIT TAKE SO LONG?

The sheer number of voters means that every time India holds a national election, it marks the largest exercise of the democratic franchise in human history. A total of 15 million people will work the polls, including people temporarily assigned from elsewhere in the civil service. Complicating the challenge are electoral laws requiring that each voter is no more than two kilometres away from a polling booth.

During the last election in 2019, for example, a polling booth was set up for a single voter living deep inside a forest in the western state of Gujarat.

Organisers say it is impossible to operate the 1,05 million polling stations needed around the country on a single day so to ease the immense logistical burden, voting is staggered over six weeks starting today.

Local weather, religious festivals, farm harvests and school terms are also taken into account to make sure voters in each corner of India can go to the polls at the most convenient date.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

Election and campaign spending have grown with India’s booming economy, now the fifth-largest in the world.

An estimated $8,7 billion was spent by organisers, political parties and candidates in 2019, according to a report by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS).

Around a quarter of that figure came in the form of cash payments made directly to voters by candidates in an attempt to sway their decision, the report said.

The same think tank told Indian media in February that it forecasts spending to exceed $14,2 billion in this year’s contest.

That figure is almost on par with political spending in the United States for the 2020 congressional and presidential elections.

WHAT IS THE ELECTION

But Gandhi has already led Congress to two defeats against Modi and his efforts to dent the premier’s popularity have failed to register with voters.

Published opinion polls are rare in India, but a Pew survey last year found Modi was viewed favourably by nearly 80% of the public. A total of 968 million people are eligible to vote in the election — more than the entire population of the United States, European Union and Russia combined.

Voting will be staggered over seven stages between today and June 1, with more than 1 million polling stations across the country. Ballots from around the country will be counted all at once on June 4 and are usually announced on the same day. — AFP.