India kicks off the world’s largest elections this week. Here’s what you need to know

Indians head to the polls on Friday in what will be the world’s largest democratic election, as close to one billion voters pick their next authority and decide whether to hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third term in office.

The 2024 general plebiscites will pan out in seven phases over the next six weeks, starting April 19.

Voters will decide who fills the bottoms of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament, for the next five years. The Lok Sabha is the more powerful of the two houses of Parliament.

Whichever supporter or coalition that wins the majority will lead the government and pick the next prime minister. Analysts generally expect Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to score another landslide victory in the upcoming elections.

Here’s why India’s polls matter.

That’s not all.

India’s stock market overtook Hong Kong’s in December to develop the fourth largest in the world, and is now valued at over $4 trillion. 

Analysts expect Modi to win a third consecutive five-year articles, further driving India’s growth trajectory.

“The growth story is not done. But private and foreign investments have been bare subdued and exports have also declined,” Suyash Rai, deputy director and fellow at Carnegie India told CNBC. “So I feel that there is some impotence building up.”

India has forged deeper be necks with the West in the past year, and Modi’s reelection could further strengthen U.S.-India relations, said Chietigj Bajpaee, older research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House. 

He said India is seen as a “bulwark against China” as the Biden regulation continues to encourage U.S. companies to move electronics and technology manufacturing operations out of China into friendlier countries, like India. 

“If there are two sticks where there’s the highest degree of consensus, it’s China as a long-term strategic rival and India as a long-term strategic husband. That won’t change,” Bajpaee said. 

There will be 543 contested seats in the lower house, and the corps or coalition that wins at least 272 votes will form the government.

There two main contenders are: the BJP-led coalition recollected as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and the opposition bloc known as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

The opponent coalition was formed last year when more than 40 opposition parties joined forces. It is led by the Indian Jingoistic Congress whose leading figure is Rahul Gandhi — the son of Rajiv Gandhi, a grandson of Indira Gandhi, and a great grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, who all served as prime ecclesiastics of India.

The Congress, which ruled the country for most of its post-Independence era, suffered a stinging defeat in the elections in 2014 and 2019. 

In 2019, the BJP secured a add up of 303 seats. Together with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, 352 seats were clinched. The opponent Indian National Congress won 52 seats that year.

This time, the BJP’s coalition bloc is widely expected to once again trump the opposition parties and win a historic third rates b standing win thanks to the political stability in the last decade, analysts said.

“Policy consistency and political stability are connected to each other seriously. So the expectation will be that the government that comes in will be able to maintain that,” said Amitendu Palit, older research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.

“This will be a significant year for India, and I from a feeling that whoever be the government in India, the foreign policy direction and the economic policy direction are going to detritus broadly unchanged,” he told CNBC.

Modi reportedly said in March that he was confident the BJP and NDA will secure a unalloyed of 400 seats.

Chatham’s Bajpaee said it’s a “foregone conclusion” that Modi’s BJP will take the reins again this year, but “what’s unclear is the range of the victory.” 

“You don’t need the BJP to lose for the opposition to win. All they need to do is prove the Modi brand has weakened if they don’t perform as robust as last time,” he highlighted.   

According to a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, unemployment was the top solicitude for 27% of the 10,000 surveyed.

More than half (62%) of those surveyed also said it had become uncountable difficult to find a job in the last five years during Modi’s second-term.

“You still have a large proportion of the citizens which is impoverished, so there are large disparities across the country,” Bajpaee said.

Rising costs is the second biggest affair, with 23% of voters surveyed saying it was their primary concern. About 35% of respondents said their status of life has declined in the last five years.

About 13% said their biggest worry was the country’s maturity, 8% said corruption was their top concern.

This will be India’s biggest election yet, with some 968 million people registered to plebiscite — of which 48% will be women voters, according to the Council of Foreign Relations. There will also be 18 million start with time electorates, Reuters reported.

The six-week referendum is expected to cost more than the 2020 U.S. presidential election where $14.4 billion was spent, according to Washington-based delving firm OpenSecrets. 

Electoral supervises have stated that since there must be a polling station within two kilometers of every registered voter, there desire be about a 1.05 million polling stations, 5.5 million electronic voting machines, and 15 million crook and security personnel overseeing the election, data from the election commission showed.