Splintered verdict in the offing? Millions will start voting across India beginning Thursday in staggered parliamentary elections that is expected to lead to a verdict more splintered than five years ago.
With no single issue dominating the five-phase elections that ends May 13, political pundits say that a complex set of factors involving states and individuals will determine who finishes on top of a hung 545-member Lok Sabha, parliament's house of the people.
About 143 million of India's 714 million voters - of a population of 1.2 billion - will be eligible to exercise their franchise in the first round of polling to pick MPs in 124 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 15 states and two union territories.
Image: Polling officials doing paper work at a distribution centre as they prepare for the first phase of polls, in Kozhikode, Kerala.
Text: IANS
Images: Copyright PTI. Unauthorised reproduction prohibited.
