Indian election

India’s Democracy Could Be at Stake in Its Elections Starting Thursday

As Indian voters go to the polls in the first phase of the country’s national parliamentary elections, they may be helping decide whether the world’s largest democracy will continue to deserve that label.

The 2019 Indian election—set to be one of the world’s most expensive—will take place in seven phases up until May 19. In these phases, each conducted in different regions of the country, voters will elect their representatives to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh will also hold elections for their state-level legislative assemblies. Following the last phase, votes will be counted, and the newly elected or reelected members of the Lok Sabha will then choose the next prime minister of India. The contest will almost certainly come down to current Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress Party. Out of India’s 1.3 billion people, 900 million are expected to turn out to choose their leaders.