Some 900 million voters from the Himalayan peaks to the deserts and tropical shores are eligible to vote for a new government for the next five years. From April 11 to May 19 voters will elect 543 lawmakers to India's lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, which governs the Asian nation of 1.25 billion people from the capital New Delhi, the electoral commission said Sunday.
Counting will be completed and results announced on May 23, it said. "The festival of democracy. Elections are here," Modi posted on Twitter late Sunday. "I hope this election witnesses a historic turnout," he added, encouraging first-time voters to cast their ballots in record numbers.
Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Gandhi's left-leaning Congress are the two strongest challengers among hundreds of political parties from across the culturally and geographically diverse country. Modi, whose right-wing party won an outright majority in the 2014 elections, enters the race in a strong position, the 68-year-old remaining a popular figure and the BJP a well-oiled political machine. In recent weeks he has been able to bolster his ultra right credentials in India's most serious standoff with Pakistan in years.