Voting begins in final phase of India polls

A man walks past the headquarters of India`s Congress party in New Delhi on 16 May 2014. Reuters File Photo
A man walks past the headquarters of India`s Congress party in New Delhi on 16 May 2014. Reuters File Photo

Voting in India's election, the world's biggest ever, ends on Sunday after an acrimonious and at times violent campaign awash with insults, fake news -- and lots of petals.

From Goa's beaches to Mumbai's slums and Ladakh's Himalayan monasteries, some 900 million eligible voters have had the chance to exercise their democratic right over the past six weeks.

The enormity of 1.3-billion-strong India and its electorate, and the security and logistical challenges, meant there had to be seven different voting days across 1.1 million polling stations starting on 11 April.

Four million electronic voting machines have criss-crossed the country, travelling to far-flung locations -- sometimes by elephant and camel -- to reach a handful of voters.

All the votes will be counted on a single day, with the voting machines stored in strongrooms with guards and CCTV watching every move before the process begins on Thursday.

Indian polling officials check an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at a distribution centre in Kolkata on 18 May 2019, on the eve of the 7th phase of India`s general election. Photo: AFP
Indian polling officials check an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at a distribution centre in Kolkata on 18 May 2019, on the eve of the 7th phase of India`s general election. Photo: AFP

If there is a clear trend, this should be discernible by around midday (0630 GMT) that day.

Opinion polls, although unreliable, predict prime minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be re-elected but with a smaller majority.

Modi has done 142 rallies across India, and sometimes five per day. Around a tonne of rose petals were used in one roadshow alone, not counting tricoloured garlands, the Times of India reported.

On Saturday the 68-year-old Hindu nationalist embarked on a spiritual break, dressed in a long robe and saffron sash as he trekked to a Himalayan shrine to meditate, with images showing him seated on a bed inside a holy cave in the country's north.

Silent scion

Hoping to become the fourth member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to lead India, Rahul Gandhi of the opposition Congress party has struggled to make himself heard above the din of the BJP's campaign juggernaut.

The Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies estimates that the outlay on this election could top $7 billion, making it one of the priciest contests globally -- with the lion's share of the spending by the BJP.

3Indian Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu (L) meets with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Supremo Mayawati (C) in Lucknow on 18 May 2019. Photo: AFP
3Indian Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu (L) meets with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Supremo Mayawati (C) in Lucknow on 18 May 2019. Photo: AFP

Lots of it has been spent on social media, with the parties using armies of “cyber warriors” to bombard India's hundreds of millions of Facebook and WhatsApp users with messages.

Fake news and doctored images have abounded, including of Gandhi and Modi having lunch with Imran Khan, prime minister of arch rival Pakistan, or of a drunk Priyanka Gandhi, a politician and the sister of Rahul.

Violence has also broken out. Maoist rebels opposed to the Indian state killed 15 troops and their driver in the western state of Maharashtra on 1 May, the latest attack in a decades-long insurgency.

Clashes between rival political supporters erupted last week in the key eastern state of West Bengal where the BJP hopes to make inroads to compensate for expected losses in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state.

'Liar' vs 'fool'

Gandhi, 48, has tried several lines of attack against Modi, in particular over alleged corruption in a French defence deal -- he calls Modi a "liar" -- and over the plight of farmers and on the economy.

Modi's government has fallen short on creating jobs for the million Indians entering the labour market every month, the shock introduction of a cash ban in 2016 caused huge disruption to livelihoods, and Indian banks are gasping under bad debts.

Lynchings of Muslims and low-caste Dalits for eating beef, slaughtering and trading in cattle have risen during Modi's tenure, leaving some of the country's 170 million Muslims feeling threatened and anxious for their future.

But Modi has managed since the latest bust-up with Muslim-majority Pakistan in February to deflect the attacks of "pappu" ("fool") Gandhi and portray himself as India's "chowkidar" ("watchman").

"Modi is the only leader who thinks about us Hindus. He is our pride. He is the only saviour of Hindus," Bibha Sandwar, a school principal, 50, told AFP at a recent rally in Delhi.

IANS adds: The 918 candidates in this phase include prime minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who faces actor-politician and sitting MP Shatrughan Sinha (now in the Congress) in Patna Sahib, and actor-turned-politicians Sunny Deol in Gurdaspur (BJP), and Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, both contesting for the Trinamool Congress from Jadavpur and Basirhat, respectively.

Also contesting are Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri (Amritsar), Manoj Sinha (Ghazipur), RK Singh (Arrah) -- all from BJP, Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal (Mirzapur) Harsimrat Kaur from ally Akali Dal in Bathinda and her husband and party President Sukhbir Singh Badal in Ferozepur, former Union Minister Preneet Kaur (Congress) in Patiala, and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's eldest daughter Misa Bharti (Patliputra).

4An Indian Punjab Police personnel stands guard as election officials carry Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) leaving a distribution centre in Amritsar on 18 May 2019, on the eve of the 7th and final phase of India`s general election. Photo: AFP
4An Indian Punjab Police personnel stands guard as election officials carry Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) leaving a distribution centre in Amritsar on 18 May 2019, on the eve of the 7th and final phase of India`s general election. Photo: AFP

In this phase, the BJP will be defending 30 seats - 11 of the 12 it won in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 as it later lost Gorakhpur in a bypoll, seven in Madhya Pradesh, all four in Himachal Pradesh, five in Bihar, one each in Punjab, Jharkhand and Chandigarh.

Allies Apna Dal won one in Uttar Pradesh and the Akali Dal four in Punjab, while then ally Rashtriya Lok Samta Party of Upendra Kushwaha had won two in Bihar. The Janata Dal-United, which is now an ally, won one seat in Bihar.

The Congress had won five seats -- one in Madhya Pradesh and four in Punjab.

Four seats were won by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab and two by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in Jharkhand. One seat is currently held by the Samajwadi Party.

In West Bengal, all nine seats were won by the Trinamool Congress.

Re-polling is also being held in several booths in parliamentary seats in six states and in Assembly constituencies in two. These seats include Kerala's Kannur and Kasargod, Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri, Theni, Thiruvallur, Cuddalore and Erode, Haryana's Faridabad, Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh, West Bengal's Bankura, Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor parliamentary and Chandgiri Assembly constituencies and 34 Assembly segments in 10 Odisha districts.