India, 2014 general election begins
New Delhi
(AsiaNews ) - Today the first phase of the general elections begins in India,
considered by many analysts to the most important and contested of the past 20
years. The
first to the polls are the 7.6 million registered voters in Assam and Tripura,
the northeastern states of the country. In
the first two hours of voting - which started at 7 this morning (local time) -
the polling stations have already registered a record turnout of 12%.
Assam
has five constituencies - Tezpur , Jorhat , Kaliabor , Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur -
while there is only one in Tripura, Tripura West . In
both states the local community has 8,588 polling stations, and will have to
choose among 51 candidates running for a seat in the Lok Sabha ( "House of
the People"), the lower house of parliament .
The
Indian Constitution provides for a maximum of 552 Lok Sabha members; of
these, 530 represent the population of the States, 20 the population of the
Territories of the Union, 2 may be appointed by the President of the country on
behalf of the Anglo-Indian community. Each
elected member represents a single geographic constituency.
The
two northeastern states are mostly dependent on agriculture. The
area is famous for the cultivation of tea, and Assam's produce is considered
among the finest in the world. The
population is mostly tribal and have long denounced an excessive increase in the
prices of basic goods and of having been "forgotten" by the central
government, because they are far from New Delhi. The
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP, the opposition) are hoping to leverage on this discontent to win in the
area, but it has always been a stronghold of the Congress party, currently in
government.
After
that today, the elections will be divided into eight more stages: April 9, 10 ,
12, 17 , 24 and 30; May7:12. Some
states will vote in more than one day, depending on the number of divisions. The
counting of votes will take place on a single day - May 16 - and the new
parliament will be constituted by May 31.
In
addition to being the most contested in recent years - as seen in the bitter
clash between Congress,
BJP and the new anti-corruption Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) - this year's elections are the biggest. There
are 814 million registered voters - 100 million more than in 2009 - and 930
thousand polling stations, compared to 830 thousand in 2009. In
each of these will use electronic voting machines, which for the first time in
the history of India, will give voters the "None of above" option.
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22/03/2024 19:16
