(18 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chennai – 18 April 2024
1. Various of election officials checking EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines)
2. EVMs on the floor
3. Officials checking EVM
4. Pan right of election material in boxes
5. Sign reading (English) “Election Commission of India”
6. Election official transferring EVMs into a box
7. Sign reading (English) “Strong room”
8. Various of election materials being carried to truck
9. Truck carrying election material moving towards polling booth
10. Various of K J Praveen Kumar, Regional Deputy Commissioner and Election Official of Chennai, speaking to polling staff
11. SOUNDBITE (English) K J Praveen Kumar, Regional Deputy Commissioner Election Official:
“(A) lot of efforts have gone. (A) lot of preparatory activities have been done. So we are confident that elections will be conducted in a free and fair manner.”
12. Low angle of a police officer
13. Various of police officials being briefed
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Doda, Jammu and Kashmir – 18 April 2024
14. An election official on horseback carrying election equipment accompanied by security personnel
15. Bus carrying election equipment stuck in sludge due to rain, officials and security personnel standing with umbrellas as it rains
16. Official on horseback
17. Bus stuck in mud
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Majuli, Assam – 18 April 2024
18. Various of election officials carrying EVMs on ferry
19. Various of ferry
20. Various of officials carrying EVMs and other equipment across bamboo bridge
21. Various of election equipment being loaded onto a trailer
22. Tractor driving away
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kohima, Nagaland – 18 April 2024
23. Various of election officials checking and handing over EVMs, officials carrying away EVMs
STORYLINE:
Preparations were underway on Thursday ahead of India’s six-week-long general election that starts on Friday.
The mammoth exercise is the biggest anywhere in the world and will take 44 days before results are announced on June 4.
Ballots will be cast at more than a million polling stations across the country using electronic voting machines.
In the first phase, polling will be held in 12 states, for 102 of the total 543 seats in the lower house of parliament.
Among the states going to the polls on Friday are Southern Tamil Nadu, north-eastern Nagaland and Assam states and the mountainous district of Doda in the north.
Officials say it has been a challenge to transport election material to many remote areas.
The polls will be held in seven phases, and each phase will last a single day with several constituencies across multiple states voting that day.
The staggered polling allows the government to deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent violence and transport election officials and voting machines.
India has a first-past-the-post multiparty electoral system in which the candidate who receives the most votes wins.
To secure a majority, a party or coalition must breach the mark of 272 seats.
With a population of over 1.4 billion people and close to 970 million eligible voters, India’s general election pits Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an avowed Hindu nationalist, against a broad alliance of opposition parties.
Most surveys have predicted a win for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
AP Video by Shonal Ganguly, Channi Anand, Anupam Nath, Yirmiyan Arthur
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