Billions spent, jungle-trekking poll workers and voting at 15,000 feet. What to know about the world’s biggest election

CNN —

Theworld’s biggest election kicks into gear next week when the first ballots are cast in India’s mammoth national polls, considered the most consequential in decades with the potential to shape the country’s future.

Nearly 1 billion people are eligible to decide whether to grant Prime Minister Narendra Modi a rare third consecutive term in office and extend the 10-year rule of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Under Modi, India has become the world’s fastest growing major economy, pushing the country of 1.4 billion people to near-superpower status.

But India has also become increasingly polarized along religious lines and critics say another five-year term will give Modi’s right-wing BJP a mandate to continue its policies that have transformed the country from a secular republic to a Hindu-first nation.

Here’s what you need to know about the largest election in human history:

How does India vote?

India’s national elections are a giant exercise in democracy and logistics that take over a month to complete.

About 968 million people are eligible to vote — more than the populations of the United States, the European Union and Russia combined.

Given the size of the electorate, there isn’t a single date when everyone will vote. Instead, polling will unfold over seven phases around the country, beginning on April 19 and ending on June 1. All the votes from the country’s 28 states and eight union territories will be counted and results released on June 4.

Under a multi-party, first-past-the-post system, Indians will vote to fill 543 of 545 seats in the lower house of parliament, called the Lok Sabha, with two other seats nominated by the country’s president.

The party with the majority will form a government and