The big elections in India, where 900 million people vote for a month

Contact us to request the date of the elections in India to note its extraordinary character. This is not a specific day as in most countries. No two, not three. The whole process lasts 38 days, divided into seven different stages. The start was given last Thursday and the goal will meet Sunday, May 19th.

The second important element is that there are more than 900 million people qualified to vote. This makes India the world's largest democracy, with many advantages over others.

At this point, you should not draw attention to more than 450 parties present candidates. Among them, the favorite is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party Bharatiya Janata (Partido Popular Indio).

This conservative force, promoting the values ​​of Hinduism – Religious Religion in the country – clearly won in 2014 and got 282 of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha (People's Chamber), which is the lower house of Parliament.

The main rival of Modi is Rahul Gandhi. He is the great-grandson of Jawaharlal NehruFirst governor of India after his independence from the British Empire in 1947, grandson of Indira Gandhi and son of Rajiv Gandhi, also prime ministers – both murdered. They all belong to Indian National Congress, the country's largest political party since the nineteenth century, which is indelibly badociated with the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi in the process of emancipation.

The results of these elections can be decisive for the future of the largest emerging power on the planet, which By 2050, he hopes to become the most populous country and the third largest economy in the world.. To understand what is at stake, it is necessary to first understand the functioning of the political engineering that underlies it.

India is a federal parliamentary republicTherefore, the epicenter of political power is the bicameral Parliament, located in New Delhi, the capital of the country. The Prime Minister comes from the legislature. He must occupy a seat and be appointed by the party or coalition with the majority of the votes. Lok Sabha.

While the prime minister is the one who heads the reins of government, the head of state is the president, who since 2017 is Ram Nath Kovind. Although he is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and has the power to dissolve Parliament, among other constitutional powers, his role is in practice essentially protocolary and operates under the direction of the Prime Minister.

The president is not elected to the popular vote. He is appointed by the electoral college, conformed by both Houses of Parliament and the Legislative Assemblies of the 29 states and two of the seven territories.

The Lok Sabha It is composed of 545 legislators. Two are appointed directly by the president, representing the small Anglo-Indian community, whose two banks are insured because they are the only one not to have a state. The other 543 result from single-member elections: the country is divided into an equal number of electoral constituencies and the most voted candidate in each of them gets access to Casa del Pueblo.

"India uses a simple majority voting system, also called plurality, in which, in each constituency, the candidate who obtains more votes than anyone wins the seat. There is no second round like in France (no one exceeds 50%), "said Subrata K. Mitra, professor in the Department of Political Science and Institute of Southeast Asia University of Heidelberg, consulted by Infobae.

Over the years, the state has tried to correct some of the most egregious inequalities that have characterized Indian society for centuries. The main obstacle is the complex system of castes, which has long established that only upper-clbad members could access certain jobs and positions of power.

Although he no longer has legal status, this system continues to operate strongly in some parts of the country, leaving many people totally excluded by the mere fact of being descendants of a certain social group. To compensate for these inequities, the Indian Constitution establishes criteria for positive discrimination. For example, there are 131 seats in the Lok Sabha which are intended for representatives of low castes.

The upper house of Parliament is the Rajya Sabha (Council of States). It has 245 seats, of which there are 12 occupied by eminent personalities of science and culture, at the election of the president.

As its name indicates, it does not represent the population but the political subdivisions of the country. As a result, the remaining 233 members are not elected directly by electors, but by members of all local legislatures.

"There is no proportional representation in the elections to the powerful lower house," said Mitra, "but that is for the upper house, where only members of state bademblies vote. There is also for the appointment of the president, a largely ceremonial figurewhose electorate is composed of members of the state legislatures and the parliament. "

Although all laws must be approved by both Houses to obtain a final sanction, the Lok Sabha has certain prerogatives that make it a powerful camera. For example, in some budget projects, you have the power to irrevocably reverse what the Rajya Sabha. Moreover, in case of conflict over an initiative, it is resolved at a meeting of the members of both bodies, which gives an apparent advantage, because it duplicates the others.

Due to the huge population of the country and the long history of ethnic tensions and political confrontations, including high-level killings, the elections are divided into seven phases. In each, you vote in different regions. If everything were resolved in one day, many critical points would be left unprotected.

"The elections in India are the largest democratic exercise in the world in terms of the voters and the manpower needed to run them.. The vast extension of the country and the logistics needed to reach the last voter take time and are a tedious process. Security forces are moving to different places to ensure that elections are free and fair, "said Praveen Rai, academic secretary of the Center for the Study of Societal Development in New Delhi, in dialogue with Infobae.

Last Thursday, the first phase was celebrated: was voted in 91 constituencies spread across 20 states. The second will take place on April 18 (97 districts in 13 states); the third, April 23 (115, 14); the fourth, April 29 (71, 9); the fifth, May 6 (51, 7); the sixth, May 12 (59, 7); and the seventh, May 19 (59, 8).

"The reason the elections extend over seven weeks is that troops must be deployed to hold secure elections. Said Mitra. The movement from one region to another takes a lot of time because India is very large and there are 543 constituencies. "

In the quieter states, everything is defined in one day, but in the most conflicting, like Bihar, the seven days are voted, in a different part each time. The extreme example is given in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the north, where there is an electoral district, Anantnag, divided into three phases., to maximize the control of the forces of order.

Kashmir is a controversial territory between India and Pakistan and has been the scene of a dangerous escalation after February 14th. a kamikaze killed 41 Indian soldiers. New Delhi reacted with an aerial bombardment of an alleged camp of terrorists on Pakistani soil, which prompted the air force of that country to react.

India shot dead a Pakistani fighter, but lost one of its planes during clashes near the border, and the pilot ended up being captured. The tension eased after Islamabad released him safe and sound a few days later. Many observers have noticed the convenience of the intersection of Modi's nationalist discourse a few weeks before the elections.

A condiment that adds to the complexity of the process is that the vote is electronic. In the hours leading up to the opening of the elections, thousands of workers were sent to transport the machines to polling stations. In big cities, there are no major complications, but in rural areas it can be tedious to reach some hidden points.

Long lines and a sense of disorder are common to every election. In turn, the voter presents a piece of identity to the authorities. They hand him a paper and paint the index finger with one hand with an indelible ink, to avoid double voting.

After signing a form, the citizen goes to the machine, which has a series of buttons. Beside each one are the names of the candidates of the district and the party for which it is presented, as well as a symbol which identifies it. As a result of a Supreme Court decision, which ruled in 2013 that citizens should have the right to cast a negative vote, Adding an option that did not exist before: "None of these answers" (NOTE for the acronym in English).

Once the voter has pressed the button corresponding to his preferences, a beep sounds that warns the authority that the vote has already been recorded. Then, in the paper that was given to him at the beginning, the ballot is printed with the chosen candidate. Eventually, he introduces her into an urn and goes away.

The machines record and count the votes numerically, but paper support has been incorporated into these elections so that there is additional support. On May 23, the general count will be done and the provisional result will be known the same day. Then the comparison will be made between the number provided by the machines and that resulting from the ballots.