Behemoth general elections in India are underway
About 815 million Indians are eligible to vote on the polls opened on Monday in the country. Authorities decided to open 930,000 polling stations to cover the sheer number of voters. Their number increased by 100 million since last elections five years ago.
However counting all votes could prove tricky. Officials said they are not expecting more than 75 percent of all eligible people to express their opinion. General election in India has a particular way. It's a nine stage action and voting will carry on until the 12th of May. On the first day of voting, polling took place in only two states, Assam and Tripura, but as days pass more and more states and constituencies will be involved. Counting the votes will begin midway through May.
Tens of thousands of police and security forces were deployed all over the country to ensure no unwanted events will hold polling. Polling takes about one month in India one of the longest actions of this kind in the world. Dominated by corruption and high inflation, polling takes so much because of logistical and security reasons and simply because there are hundreds of millions of voters. Official figures already show there are 100 million more eligible voters in India then at the last elections in 2009.