Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is showered with petals during a campaign stopVARANASI (INDIA) - Voting in India's election, the world's biggest ever, ends on Sunday after an acrimonious and at times violent campaign awash with insults, fake news -- and lots of petals. Four million electronic voting machines have criss-crossed the country, traveling to far-flung locations -- sometimes by elephant and camel -- to reach a handful of voters. Opinion polls, although unreliable, predict Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be re-elected but with a smaller majority. Maoist rebels opposed to the Indian state killed 15 troops and their driver in the western state of Maharashtra on May 1, the latest attack in a decades-long insurgency. But Modi has managed since the latest bust-up with Muslim-majority Pakistan in February to deflect the attacks of "pappu" ("fool") Gandhi and portray himself as India's "chowkidar" ("watchman").

Source: Bangkok Post May 18, 2019 21:33 UTC