World’s largest election kicks off in India

PanARMENIAN.Net - India started the world's largest election Monday, April 7, sealing international borders along its remote northeast while voters made their way past lush rice paddies and over rickety bamboo bridges and pot-holed dirt roads to reach the polls, the Associated Press reports.

The country's 814 million electorate will vote in stages over the next five weeks — a staggered approach made necessary by India's vast size — to choose representatives to its 543-seat lower house of parliament.

The main Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata Party led by prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi is seen as the biggest threat to the now-governing Congress Party and its allies.

Results from all 935,000 polling stations are expected on May 16.

Polls suggest Congress could be facing a drubbing thanks to corruption scandals and recent years of economic slowdown. The BJP, which has pledged economic renewal, is expected to do well but to fall short of a 272-seat majority. Its chief, Modi, has been credited for ushering in strong industrial growth in western state of Gujarat, where he has been chief minister for 11 years, the AP says.

On Monday — the first of nine voting days — voters were selecting from candidates in five constituencies in the northeastern state of Assam and one in neighboring Tripura state.

For most voters in rural Assam, a state of 30 million people largely concerned with infrastructure and environmental damage, the two main national parties' focus on job growth and economic development have little urgency.

Authorities deployed 25,000 police and paramilitary troopers to guard polling stations on Monday. Helicopters were put on standby, and international borders with Bangladesh and Bhutan were sealed.

"Several ethnic insurgent groups and Maoist rebels may try violence to disrupt the polls. We are not taking chances," said Assam's police assistant director general, A. P Raut.