Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Since taking office in 2014, Mr Modi has allocated funds for more than 300 federal welfare programmes, with a focus on women and farmers. These include essentials like cooking gas, grain, housing, toilets and financial assistance. Many benefits, including pensions, subsidies, loans and scholarships, are disbursed via cash transfers to bank accounts linked to biometric IDs held by over a billion Indians. Massive posters of Mr Modi promoting these initiatives dot the landscape.

Surveys show voters identify welfare programmes with the ruling parties, external, and that the number of households who are using clean cooking fuel, toilets and women's access to bank accounts have increased since Mr Modi came to power in 2014. Yet, evidence of welfare translating to votes is more mixed. Victories in Indian elections aren't determined by a single factor - caste, demography and religious identity are other key predictors of support for a party.

It will take exactly 47 days to find out who has won the election. We know that’s an excruciatingly long wait but the staggeringly large scale of the polls makes that necessary.

What has kick-started today is the world’s biggest electoral exercise, and each of the country’s roughly 969 million registered voters will get a chance to cast their ballot.

Voting will stretch across April and May and end on 1 June. The results will be declared on 4 June.

Members of an ancient tribe came out to vote in the Strait Island near Port Blair, the capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar.

The Greater Andamanese are believed to have a population of just over 50, and mostly live on one of the 37 islands in the coral reef-fringed archipelago.

Image source, Election Commission

Image source, Election Commission

Image source, Election Commission

Yogita Limaye
Reporting from Uttar Pradesh

One of the constituencies voting today is Muzaffarnagar. It's located in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which is politically the most important as it sends the maximum number of MPs to parliament.

Right from early in the morning when the polls opened, we’ve seen people filtering in. This commitment to the electoral process is ingrained in Indian culture, especially in rural areas.

Lines are building up now. We met Ambraesh who says that women’s safety is the most important issue for her.

Sahajkali, a 63-year-old labourer, said uppermost in her mind was rising prices as she cast her vote.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

In bustling Agra, home to the iconic Taj Mahal and some two million residents tucked away in cramped homes along narrow, labyrinthine lanes, tourists brave the sweltering heat to marvel at the monument to love.

Agra's political landscape mirrors its eclectic past, with Congress reigning supreme until the late 1970s, followed by the BJP's ascendancy and sporadic victories by figures like Bollywood actor Raj Babbar for the Samajwadi Party in the 1990s.

The city votes in May.

Since 2014, the BJP has held it. I met Siraj Qureshi, a seasoned journalist and interfaith organiser, who lamented the erosion of bonds between Agra's Hindu majority and Muslim minority. "Politics has tainted relationships," he reflected sombrely. He says he perseveres in fostering harmony through events celebrating both Hindu and Muslim festivals such as Holi and Eid.

While Agra has witnessed its share of religious conflict in the past, communalism has now become deeply intertwined with politics, a development Mr Qureshi finds particularly troubling, saying “I pray to God that the good old days return”.

So, he adds, he remains steadfast in his commitment to bridging divides and preserving the city's diverse cultural fabric. Dreams die hard in the city which boasts the world’s most famous monument to love.

Image source, Getty Images

On the other side is Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party leader who is often called the face of India’s opposition.

Born into India’s most famous political dynasty - his great-grandfather, grandmother and father were prime ministers - Mr Gandhi faces the uphill task of reviving his party’s fortunes after it suffered massive defeats in the last two general elections against Mr Modi’s BJP.

Over the years, he has been accused - sometimes by his own party members - of being a reluctant politician who isn't serious enough to put up a tough fight to the popular prime minister.

But since 2022, he has travelled the length and breadth of the country to counter that opinion and position himself as a spirited leader.

Read more: What you need to know about Rahul Gandhi

Image source, Getty Images

What you need to know about Narendra ModiAll elections are important but for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this one is particularly crucial. He and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are aiming for a third straight term in power.

If he becomes PM again, he will equal the record of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.

The 73-year-old is the most prominent leader in the country currently and his personal appeal among voters and sound political instincts are big driving factors for his party.

He is a divisive figure - his supporters say he is a strong leader who has delivered good governance and foreign policy triumphs. But critics accuse his government of targeting opposition leaders, shrinking space for dissent and marginalising the minority Muslim community - the BJP denies this.

Read more: What you need to know about Narendra Modi

Arunoday Mukharji
Reporting from Tamil Nadu

Image source, Jaltson Akkanath Chummar/BBC

In bustling Chennai city in Tamil Nadu, we met 74-year-old Palayammal, who says she has voted in every state and federal election since she became eligible to cast her ballot when she turned 18.

She works as a domestic helper, earning just around 1,000 rupees ($12; £10) a month.

The biggest issue troubling her is rising prices. She has four sons who do odd jobs for daily wages - they are struggling to find permanent work, she says.

"Over the years, I don't feel things have improved for poor people like me," she adds.

Arunoday Mukharji
Reporting from Tamil Nadu

Image source, Getty Images

One of the most interesting states voting today is Tamil Nadu in the south - it sends 39 lawmakers to the parliament. With a population of more than 70 million and credited with being India’s second largest state economy after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu is both coveted by, but also elusive, to national political parties.

For decades, the state’s politics has mostly been dominated by two regional parties - the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which is currently governing the state, and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). In the 2019 general election, the DMK won a decisive 38 of the 39 seats.

National parties like the BJP and the Congress have always had to ride on the back of these regional parties while contesting in the state. In addition, the BJP also has the tag of being a Hindi-centric party in Tamil Nadu, which has seen several pro-Tamil language agitations.

In 2019, the BJP failed to make a mark, getting less than 4% of the votes. This time, Mr Modi began his election campaign from Tamil Nadu and has been there eight times in four months - signs that the party is desperate to increase its footprint in the state.

It’s long been said that “the way to Delhi is through UP” - short for Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with more than 240 million people. If UP was an independent country, it would be the fifth largest in the world - just after India, China, US and Indonesia - and ahead of Pakistan, Nigeria or Brazil.

The state elects the largest number of MPs - 80 - and analysts say a party that does well in the state generally rules India. BJP won 71 seats from the state in 2014 and 62 in 2019. Eight of India’s prime ministers trace their roots to UP - even Mr Modi, who is originally from Gujarat, chose the state to make his debut as an MP in 2014 by contesting from the ancient city of Varanasi. In 2019, he won the seat for the second time and is contesting again from there.

A newly-married couple in the northern state of Uttarakhand arrived at the polling booth dressed in their wedding attire.

Image source, ANI

Indians are voting in the first of a seven-phase general election. Friday's voting is to send 102 MPs to the lower house of parliament. Some 167 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots across 187,000 polling stations.

Of these voters, 84 million are male, 82 million are female and 11,371 are classified as third-gender electors.

Fates of 1,625 candidates will be decided today. Women candidates make up just a fraction of this number at 134.

About 1.8 million polling officials will supervise the voting process. But ferrying such a large number of personnel is a Herculean task, requiring the service of 41 helicopters, 84 special trains and nearly 100,000 vehicles.

Image source, Getty Images

Tens of thousands of spectators watching an Indian Premier League cricket match in Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium last Sunday were sworn a pledge that they would cast their votes in every election. The Election Commission had roped in cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar to administer the oath. Several Bollywood stars and other celebrities have also been seen recently exhorting citizens to do their duty for democracy. The commission has organised several events to grab attention like painting , externala, external bridge, external over the Cauvery river, sending officials parasailing, external and even scuba divers, external going under sea with a voting machine.

In the 2019 general election, nearly 615 million people - 67% of over 945 million eligible voters - cast their ballots, setting a record for the highest voter turnout.

That election also saw the vanishing of the long-standing gender disparity in the turnout. However, nearly a third abstained from voting – the city-bred, the young and migrants constituted the bulk of the 300 million absent voters.

India’s voter turnout compares favourably when compared with many advanced democracies. Analysts believe high voter turnout often signifies faith in the political system and a desire for government change - studies in both India and the US have also revealed a connection between high turnout and anti-incumbency sentiments.

Image source, Getty Images

Since the morning, voters have been thronging polling booths - from Uttar Pradesh in northern India to Tamil Nadu in the south.

More than 163 million people are eligible to vote in the first phase of the election happening today.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Photo courtesy ECI

India’s Election Commission says that “every voter counts” - and it’s not just a slogan.

Officials use helicopters, boats, horses, elephants and mules to get to hard-to-reach corners.

In the 2019 general election, five poll officials travelled by bus and foot for two days so that a lone voter – a 39-year-old woman in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh – could cast her ballot.

The election is taking place in an atmosphere of acrimony.

Opposition leaders have accused Mr Modi's government of weaponising federal agencies to crack down on its opponents and reduce the chances of a fair election.

Weeks before polling started, authorities arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on corruption allegations. Just weeks earlier, the financial crime agency arrested had another opposition chief minister - Hemant Soren of Jharkhand state.

Image source, Getty Images

Both are members of the opposition's INDIA alliance and deny the allegations against them, saying the cases are politically motivated. The BJP says investigative agencies are just doing their job.

In February, the main opposition Congress party said its bank accounts were frozen by the income-tax department. The party said it was the government's attempt to financially cripple its campaigns ahead of voting - a charge the BJP denies.

Image source, Getty Images

India is the world’s most populous nation and, being a democracy, each eligible voter in the country’s 28 states and eight union territories will get a chance to cast their ballot.

This mammoth electoral exercise will go on for a month and a half and there’s a great deal of logistics planning required to ensure that the voting takes place methodically and peacefully.

In the smallest states and federally-administered territories, voting will be wrapped up in a single day. Some of the larger states will see two to four days of polling, and in states with huge populations like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, voting will be held in all seven phases.

The authorities will utilise the gaps between phases to move the polling and security staff.