VOTERS in India began to cast their ballots as the world's biggest election got underway today (April 7).
India's 814-million-strong electorate are forecast to inflict a heavy defeat on the ruling Congress party, in power for 10 years, and elect Narendra Modi from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Voting began at 7 am (0130 GMT) in six constituencies in tea-growing and insurgency-wracked areas of the northeast.
"I want the government to reduce poverty and do something for the future of my children," said 30-year-old tea plantation worker Santoshi Bhumej at a polling station in Dibrugarh in Assam.
Men and women were packed tightly into separate queues when polls opened, shuffling slowly into tightly guarded booths to press the button for their candidates on electronic voting machines.
The marathon contest will be held over nine phases until May 12.
Prime ministerial front-runner Modi is the chief minister of Gujarat and son of a tea seller whose rise has split his party.
Releasing the party's delayed manifesto on Monday, which mixed promises for economic development and the protection of Hindu interests, Modi promised to lift the mood of the country.
"Today the country has become stagnant. It is drowned in pessimism. It needs momentum to move forward," he said.
He urged voters to give him a majority in the 543-seat parliament, in defiance of surveys which repeatedly show the BJP are likely to need coalition partners when results are published on May 16.
Rahul Gandhi, leading Congress into his first national election as scion of the famous dynasty, warned on Sunday (April 6) that a victory for Modi threatens India's religious fabric.
"Wherever these people (the opposition BJP) go they create fights. They'll pit Hindus and Muslims against each other," he said.
Since the last vote five years ago, a 100 million people have joined the electoral rolls, and more than half of the country is aged under 25.
Modi, 20 years older than Gandhi at 63, is expected to score strongly among the young thanks to his message of aspiration and skills over the left-leaning Congress's pitch of welfare and equitable development.
The BJP leader has been able to tap into a groundswell of discontent.
Over the last a decade, growth has averaged 7.6 per cent per year, yet inflation has also been high and a sharp economic slowdown since 2012 has crippled the public finances and led investment to crash.
