UPDATE 29 Apr 2009 : India's marathon general election passes the half-way stage, with Mumbai entering the fray barely five months on from the deadly Islamist militant attacks on the city. Six seats in India's lower house of parliament are up for grabs in India's financial and entertainment capital, which has seen an increase in "white collar" political activism since the November strikes that killed 166. The month-long, five-stage election -- the world's largest democratic exercise -- wraps up on May 13, with the final results expected three days later. With neither of the two main parties -- the incumbent Congress and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- seen as capable of securing an absolute majority, the likely outcome is an unsteady coalition that would struggle to see out a full term
LIKE a lumbering elephant embarking on an epic trek, India’s general election got under way this week . That it keeps going is something of a miracle. The scale is mind-boggling. It will be spread over five stages, taking four weeks and involving 6.5m staff. In 543 constituencies, 4,617 candidates, representing some 300 parties, will compete for the ballots of an electorate of 714m eligible voters. In 828,804 polling stations, 1,368,430 simple, robust and apparently tamper-proof electronic voting machines will be deployed. It is hard not to be impressed by the process—and its resilience.
UPDATE1: in New Delhi on March 15, 2009. BSP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati held a press conference on the occasion of party founder Kanshi Ram's birth anniversary and ruled out any alliance during the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections
India will hold general elections staggered from April 16 to May 13, kick starting a frenetic campaign for the 700 million votes up for the grabs in the world's biggest democracy.
