Elections 99: Mammoth Undertaking-First round completed. (BBC reports)
Mammoth undertaking
In total, 605 million people are allowed to vote - more than the combined populations of Russia, the United States and Japan.
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The first day of voting in India's general election has finished, with a low turnout reported in many areas.
Some 140 million people in around a quarter of parliamentary seats were eligible to cast their ballots on Sunday - the first of five days of polling. The elections are staggered over a month because of the sheer scale of the exercise.
But when voting stations closed at 5pm (1130GMT) after 10 hours, turnout was reported to have been light in many areas.
The BBC's Daniel Lak says that although a high turnout is traditional in Indian elections, people may have become weary of voting after three elections in as many years.
Little violence
In general, the vote has been peaceful, although there have been reports of sporadic violence.
Daniel Lak in Delhi: "A relative lack of interest in voting"
Police in Andhra Pradesh say a worker of the governing Telugu Desam party was stabbed to death and more than ten others injured in several clashes between supporters of rival political parties.
Police said they suspect some workers of the Congress party to be behind the incident.
Clashes between rival party activists are also being reported from the northern state of Punjab, where police said four people were wounded in gun fights.
Delhi and Kashmir vote
The capital, Delhi, the troubled northern state of Jammu and Kashmir and several other states are part of the first phase of the general elections.
The BBC's Daniel Lak reports from one of the polling stations in the capital In Delhi, press photographers crowded around as Congress leader Sonia Gandhi arrived to cast her ballot.
She looked upbeat and sounded confident as she voted, telling reporters that she was not worried about opinion polls that give her opponents a clear lead.
Mammoth undertaking
In total, 605 million people are allowed to vote - more than the combined populations of Russia, the United States and Japan.
Many hope that this election will put an end to a decade of political instability.
Some 4.5 million civil servants have been requisitioned to man 800,000 polling booths, protected by almost a million police and paramilitary personnel.
In the cities, electronic voting machines are increasingly used. The rest of the country uses ballot papers, often the size of pillow cases.
As many as 60 candidates may be listed on each voting slip, alongside pictorial symbols for those who cannot read or write - just under half of the electorate.
Further rounds of voting will be held on 11, 18 and 25 September, and 3 October.
Counting is not due to begin until 6 October.
Quiet campaign
At their most vibrant, Indian election campaigns are noisy and colourful.
The run up to this poll has been noticeably less so, partly due to a lack of substantive issues and also because of strict guidelines from India's autonomous Election Commission.
Liquor sales are banned 24 hours before polling and on election day, because of a fear that parties will use alcohol to "buy" votes.
But some argue the ruling has had little effect.
"Come elections, and liquor flows... There are some two million slum votes to be bought - and by the barrelful," the Times of India reports.
Flamboyant campaigns have given way to more low-key, but often hi-tech, efforts.
Video and audio cassettes have featured prominently, with campaign jingles based on popular Bollywood tunes. These have been bolstered with compact discs and, increasingly, the Internet.
Several candidates have set up personal home pages in the hope of appealing to India's growing cyber audience.
Advantage BJP
The campaign has been somewhat enlivened by increasingly sharpened rhetoric, with personal attacks on the two contenders for the post of prime minister - the incumbent Atal Behari Vajpayee and Italian-born Sonia Gandhi.
Substantive issues relating to India's endemic poverty, unemployment, illiteracy or health care have hardly been raised.
Most recent opinion polls give Mr Vajpayee a good chance of retaining his post with a larger majority.
He is running on his record in office, particularly his government successes in expelling Pakistani-backed forces from the hills of Kashmir earlier this year. |
