Millions vote in India’s grueling election with Prime Minister Modi’s party likely to win third term ( apnews.com )

NEW DELHI (AP) — Millions of Indians voted Saturday in the next-to-last round of a grueling national election with a combined opposition trying to rattle Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign for a third-consecutive term for himself and his Hindu nationalist party.

Many people lined polling stations before the start of voting at 7 a.m. to avoid the blazing sun at the peak of Indian summer. The temperature soared to 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) in the afternoon in the Indian capital.

“This (election) is also like a festival, so I don’t have a problem voting in the heat,” said Lakshmi Bansal, a housewife.

Saturday’s voting in 58 constituencies, including seven in New Delhi, will complete polling for 89.5% of 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament. The remaining 57 seats will be decided on June 1, wrapping up a six-week election. The votes will be counted on June 4.

President Droupadi Murmu and External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar were among the early voters. Opposition Congress party leaders, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, also voted in New Delhi.

Mehbooba Mufti, a former top elected official of Indian-controlled Kashmir, held a protest with her supporters Saturday claiming that scores of her party workers were detained by police to prevent them from voting. Mufti, the chief of the People’s Democratic Party who is contesting the parliamentary election in the Anantnag-Rajouri district, said she complained to election officials.

In West Bengal state, workers belonging to the All India Trinamool Congress party blocked the car of Agnimitra Paul, one of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party candidates, as she proceeded to vote in the Medinipur constituency. The two parties are rivals in the state and their activists often clash on the streets.