The second phase of the Indian general election has begun, and 160 million people are eligible to vote in this part of the six-week-long poll. The weather might have an impact on this phase of the vote.
The second phase of voting for India’s 2024 general elections began on Friday, amid intense campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition INDIA alliance to appeal to voters.
Eligible voters in some 88 constituencies across 13 states and Union territories — Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur and Tripura — lined up outside polling stations in parts of the country hit by a scorching heatwave.
Indian news outlet NDTV reported a 25% voter turnout across the states and union territories as of 11 am.
India’s 2024 general election, the largest democratic exercise in the world, began on April 19 and ends on June 1. Results are expected by June 4. Nearly a billion people are eligible to vote.
Gandhi hoping to hold onto his Wayanad seat
Modi hopes to win a third successive term as voters elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament.
His BJP party is up against the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (India), which includes opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party.
The focus on Friday will be on the southern states of Karnataka and Kerala.
Karnataka is one of the BJP’s only strongholds in southern India, but the state went to the opposition in the state assembly elections.
Gandhi — the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister and one of PM Modi’s strongest critics — is seeking re-election from Wayanad in Kerala. It has been a Congress bastion for the last two decades.
India top court dismisses changes to vote-counting process
India’s Supreme Court declined to order any change to the vote-counting process in the ongoing national election.
The opposition sought a complete cross-verification of votes cast using electronic voting machines with a voter-verifiable-paper-audit-trail (VVPAT) unit that the machine comes with. India has been using electronic voting machines to record votes since 2000.
The VVPAT unit produces a paper slip that is visible to the voter for about seven seconds before it gets stored in a sealed drop box.
The opposition asked for VVPAT slips to be cross-checked with electronic voting machine votes because they say it would make the vote more transparent. India’s top court also rejected a return to the ballot paper system for elections.
Source: Dw
