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The starting signal for the election campaign in the world’s largest democracy was given on Saturday after the Election Commission of India announced the date of April 19 for the first phase of voting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the strong favorite to win the lower house vote and be re-elected to a third five-year term at the helm of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Voting will take place staggered over more than six weeks in seven phases across states and territories of the world’s most populous country, concluding with a final round on June 1. Votes will be counted on June 4.
“Our promise is to hold national elections in a way that will enhance our global brilliance and remain a beacon for electoral democracies around the world,” said Rajiv Kumar, India’s chief election commissioner.
Kumar added that in a year when more than five dozen nations will vote, India’s elections will be a “north star” in both “quantity and quality.” About 968 million Indians will be qualified to vote, including about 19 million first-time voters aged 18-19 and about 197 million voters in their 20s.
Modi’s BJP has talked about increasing its majority in the 543-member lower house from the 303 seats it won in the 2019 elections to as many as 370, or 400 together with its political allies.
Its opposition, led by the Indian National Congress, has joined forces with more than two dozen other regional and center-left parties in a fractious electoral alliance.
However, Modi’s opponents have complained about the inherent disadvantages of a country where the BJP has the upper hand in fundraising and has strong influence on the media and social networks.
This week, Indians were debating the financing of political parties after the Election Commission released information on buyers and recipients of “voter vouchers” under orders from the Supreme Court. India’s top court last month banned the opaque financing mechanism.
The data showed that the BJP was by far the biggest beneficiary of the program and companies operating in heavily regulated sectors such as lotteries, construction and mining were among the biggest donors, lending credence to the claims of critics according to which it would be in favor of the ruling party.
Modi’s critics raised further doubts about the fairness of the upcoming vote last week after Arun Goel, one of India’s three election commissioners, suddenly resigned. This temporarily reduced the watchdog’s leadership to just one leader after Anup Chandra Pandey, who retired last month.
Two new commissioners were sworn in on Friday and Kumar dismissed questions about Goel’s departure, telling news channel NDTV that his colleague had resigned for “personal reasons”.
In response to a reporter’s question about the integrity of India’s electronic voting machines, India’s top election official said: “EVMs are 100% safe.”