Indians have begun voting in the first phase of a general election that is being seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Tens of millions of Indians across 20 states and union territories are voting in 91 constituencies.
The seven-phase vote to elect a new lower house of parliament will continue until 19 May. Counting day is 23 May.
With 900 million eligible voters across the country, this is the largest election ever seen.
Some observers have billed this as the most important election in decades and the tone of the campaign has been acrimonious.
Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a historic landslide in the last elections in 2014. He stakes his claim to lead India on a tough image and remains the governing BJP’s main vote-getter.
But critics say his promises of economic growth and job creation haven’t met expectations and India has become more religiously polarised under his leadership.
The BJP faces challenges from strong regional parties and a resurgent Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi. Mr Gandhi’s father, grandmother and great-grandfather are all former Indian prime ministers. His sister, Priyanka Gandhi, formally joined politics in January.
How has voting gone so far?
The Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament has 543 elected seats and any party or coalition needs a minimum of 272 MPs to form a government.
Hundreds of voters began to queue up outside polling centres early Thursday morning. In the north-eastern state of Assam, lines of voters began forming almost an hour before voting officially began.
Voters at one polling booth in Baraut – in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh – got a royal welcome with people greeted by drums and a shower of flower petals.
But violence has flared in several places already. One person has died after clashes erupted at a polling station in Anantpur, in southern Andhra Pradesh state. Four others were critically injured in the fight that broke out between workers from two parties, BBC Telugu reports.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESIn central Chhattisgarh state, suspected Maoists detonated an IED device near a polling booth at around 04:00 local time (23:30 BST) – no injuries were reported.
The mineral-rich state has witnessed an armed conflict for more than three decades and attacks by Maoist rebels on security forces are common. On Tuesday a state lawmaker was killed in a suspected rebel attack.
How big is this election?
It is mind-bogglingly vast – about 900 million people above the age of 18 will be eligible to cast their ballots at one million polling stations. At the last election, vote turn-out was around 66%.
More than 100 million people are eligible to vote in the first phase of the election on Thursday.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESNo voter is meant to have to travel more than 2km to reach a polling station. Because of the enormous number of election officials and security personnel involved, voting will take place in seven stages between 11 April and 19 May.
India’s historic first election in 1951-52 took three months to complete. Between 1962 and 1989, elections were completed in four to 10 days. The four-day elections in 1980 were the country’s shortest ever.
Source: The BBC
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