That’s a wrap for today
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To read more about the fifth phase of India’s mammoth national election, you can access our explainer here. The sixth phase of the seven-phase election will be held on Saturday.
WATCH: Who votes in phase 5 and what’s at stake?
India’s six-week-long general election is entering its final stages with the fifth phase of voting held today.
Among the regions going to the polls was Ladakh, which shares a border with China and Pakistan. It’s seen months of protests calling for statehood.
Here’s what happened today
We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s events:
- As of 5pm (11:30 GMT), the Himalayan territory of Ladakh is leading with the highest voter turnout at 67 percent in the fifth phase of the Indian elections, the ANI news agency reports.
- Opposition Indian National Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, who is contesting from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh state, says it has “become clear in the first four phases that the people have stood up to protect the constitution and democracy”.
- Police have detained a 17-year-old whose video shows him voting for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) eight times. The video has gone viral as rivals have screamed voter fraud.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP has urged women and young voters to “exercise their franchise”.
- Should India take from the rich and give to the poor?
- As the world’s largest – and one of its most unequal – democracies votes in a mammoth national election, a new debate has gripped the campaigns of both Modi’s BJP and the opposition Congress.
- At the heart of this latest political slugfest is the idea of a potential redistribution of wealth.
- But while the Congress party has alluded to the need for some resources to be reallocated to marginalised economic and caste-based communities, Modi and the BJP have accused the opposition of plotting to hand over wealth from Hindu households to Muslims.
- Elections turn spotlight on a dream gone sour: Jobs
- A growing number of Indians are bearing the brunt of the increasing informalisation of work.
- The India Employment Report 2024, a study released in March by the International Labour Organization and the Institute for Human Development, found that India’s workforce is getting more informalised and the quality of employment has suffered, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- About 70 percent of India’s construction workers and 62 percent of its casual agricultural workers earn salaries below minimum wage, the study said, citing government data. Even in the formal sector, about 18 percent of workers did not have work contracts that protect them. They also had fewer benefits than before, the study found.
- ‘People are falling sick’
- Weather officials had warned of more heatwave days than usual – even in a place like Mumbai, India’s financial capital, in western India.
- Voters at a polling station in a tiny lane in the city waited for hours in snaking queues that advanced slowly. “It is claustrophobic, and people are falling sick,” said housewife Shalini Pawar, 42, who queued for three hours.
- One woman nearly fainted in the heat, she added, calling for the authorities to provide drinking water to those waiting.
