India is in a race to pick its new leader – the prime minister of India. In India, the prime minister is elected after every five years. India’s population is 1.2 billion, out of which 81.4 crores will cast their vote to elect their new leader. The number of voters in 2014 has increased by 10 crores since the last election in 2009. This number of voters makes India the world’s largest democracy.

Do you know what is the world’s population? 7 billion people.

The Indian election is certainly not easy. While India is a country rich in its culture, its diversity makes nationwide events difficult. The whole election process will take 5 weeks to get all the voters to cast their votes. The voting started this Monday, 7th April, and will continue till 12th May of this year.  People will be using Electronic Voting machines to  cast their vote. The counting of the votes will take place on May 16th and then the results will be declared. While it is a daunting task, India has practised it so many times that it has become very good at it. Remember practice makes perfect! This is the sixteenth time voters will cast their vote since India’s first election after independence.

India follows a parliamentary system of voting. Don’t know what it is? Let us try and understand. There are two houses in the parliament – Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. In this system the head of the state, the prime minister is elected by the Lok Sabha members. The members of Lok Sabha are chosen by the general elections. These members belong to political parties and whichever party wins the election in a majority ( has maximum number of party members are chosen by the people) gets to choose the Prime minister.

This election there are three major parties that are contending for the votes of the Indian citizens. INC, BJP and AAP. The current government is the Congress Party led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It has left a lot of people angered because of lack of action against corruption and criminal activities.

It is unclear who will win at the finals. We have to wait till the mid of May to find that out.

Can you answer this trivia?

* Who was the first PM of India? Pt. Jawahar lal Nehru

* Which former PM’s parents share the same name? Atal Bihari Vajpayee, His father’s name is Krishna Bihari Vajpayee and mother’s name is Krishna Devi.

* What is an EVM? Electronic Voting Machines.

* Which state did not Vote until 1977? Sikkim, as till 1975 Sikkim was not part of the Indian Union.