Ahmedabad, India, May 7 (EFE).- Polling booths across 12 states of India opened on Tuesday for the third phase of the general elections, which began on Apr. 19 and have so far been marked by a lower turnout than in previous polls.
Just over 100 million voters are called to cast their votes between 7 am and 6 pm, according to data from the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Home Minister Amit Shah, who is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trusted ally, will be seeking re-election to the Lower House of Parliament or Lok Sabha, from Gandhinagar in the western Gujarat state in this phase.
“Of course I was excited to come. I wanted to be the first in the line and the rest to follow me,” Sameer Joshi told EFE in the city of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, after leaving his home almost an hour before the booths’ opened.
Modi, who is seeking a third consecutive term, voted in Ahmedabad on Tuesday morning, thronged by hundreds of supporters, chanting his name, “Long Live India” and “Jai Shri Ram,” a battle cry of Hindu nationalists.
He was accompanied by Amit Shah amid heavy security, comprising of hundreds of police officers at every 50 meters and others watching from the rooftops of surrounding buildings.
“I’ve been here since 7 (am),” said a woman, who had to wait an hour to be able to catch a glimpse of Modi.
Another of his supporters, Dinesh Gaggra, told EFE that he comes to see Modi vote in every election, especially since he also casts his ballot at the same polling booth.
Shah cast his vote at a polling booth in Ahmedabad under the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency.
Voting will be held in 94 constituencies across the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, among others.
All these states are strongholds of Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which secured a landslide victory in the 2019 elections, and are of immense political significance due to the number of members of parliament they send to the 543-seat Lok Sabha.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will also be contesting his first election with the BJP in this phase from the Guna constituency in Madhya Pradesh.
The grandson of the last ruler of the erstwhile Gwalior state in central India quit the opposition Congress Party to join the BJP in 2020.
The first two phases, held on Apr. 19 and 26, were marked by below-average voter turnout and an increase in hate speech against the Muslim minority by the BJP.
The opposition alliance, named INDIA and led by the Congress Party of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, maintains that a third consecutive victory for Modi would mean the death of democracy in the country due to his authoritarian tendencies.
The elections, the world’s largest with around 969 million eligible voters, will conclude on June 1 and the results will be declared on June 4. EFE
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