India election 2024: Live updates as vote counting gets underway

It boils down to two key reasons: the sheer size of India, the world’s most populous country, and the astonishing level of logistics needed to ensure that every registered voter is able to cast their ballot.

Over the years, the duration of voting has wavered. It took nearly four months to complete the vote in India’s first elections in 1951-1952, after it gained independence from British rule, and just four days in 1980. In 2019, voting took 39 days. This year’s election is the second longest.

With 970 million registered voters, the size of India’s electorate is bigger than the combined population of the 27 European Union member states.

While some of India’s 28 state and eight federal territories cast their ballots in a day, voting elsewhere took longer. The largest state, Uttar Pradesh, with 200 million people, voted on all seven days.