Third phase of general elections begins in India

Voting began in the third and largest phase of India’s staggered general elections on Tuesday, including in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat and in opposition Congress Party chief Rahul Gandhi’s seat in southern Kerala.

In all, 188 million voters are eligible to cast ballots in 117 constituencies during the day across 15 states and federally-controlled territories. India’s parliament has 545 members.

The general elections, which has seven phases, began on April 11 and will end on May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23.

“This is, sort of, an inflection point,” said Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank. More than half of India’s parliamentary constituencies will have voted by the end of the third phase.

So far, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has aggressively pushed Modi’s national security record as it seeks to offset the opposition’s charges of economic mishandling, inadequate jobs creation, and widespread farm distress.

“I think job creation, sustainable development, and communal harmony should be the top priorities for the upcoming government,” said Ubaidullah Mohyideen, 26, who voted on Tuesday in Kerala’s Wayanad, one of the two seats that Gandhi is contesting.

Modi addressed an election rally in western Maharashtra State on Monday and mentioned the attacks on Sri Lankan hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that killed 290 people.

SS