India’s 2024 General Election: What to Know

After more than six weeks of voting across the country, India’s general election will reach its conclusion on Tuesday as the votes are counted and the results are announced. The New York Times will provide live coverage starting around 8 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. Eastern).

The election, a high-turnout affair in which more than 640 million Indians voted, is a mammoth undertaking described as the biggest peacetime logistical exercise anywhere.

It coincided with an intense heat wave that gripped much of north India, leaving at least 30 election workers dead, according to news reports. The country’s election commission said it was still counting deaths across the country, mostly because of heatstroke.

Here’s what else to know about the election that will determine the political direction of the world’s most populous nation for the next five years.

• Why does this election matter?

• How does India vote?

• Who is running and who is likely to win?

• When will we find out the results?

• Where can I find out more information?

Why does this election matter?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose power is well entrenched, is seeking a third term. In his decade at the helm, he has projected himself as a champion of India’s development, trying to address some of the basic failures, like antiquated infrastructure and a lack of toilets and clean water, that have held the country back from reaching its potential as a major power. But his push to reshape India’s secular democracy as a Hindu-first nation has aggravated the religious and ethnic fault lines in this huge, diverse country.

In a region of frequent political turmoil, India is deeply proud of the nearly undisrupted electoral democracy it has maintained since its founding as a republic more than 75 years ago. While independent institutions have come under assault from Mr. Modi’s efforts to centralize power and the ruling party is seen as having an unfair advantage over political fund-raising, voting in India is still seen as free and fair, and candidates generally accept the results.