Voting begins in monthlong Indian elections

Voters in India's remote northeast cast ballots on the first day of the world's biggest elections Monday, with the opposition — under its controversial but popular leader — heading into the polls with strong momentum on promises of a surge in economic growth.

With 814 million eligible voters, India will vote in stages over the next five weeks in a staggered approach made necessary by the country's vast size. Voters will choose representatives for the 543-seat lower house of parliament.

Results from all 935,000 polling stations are expected on May 16. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi, are seen as the biggest threats to the governing Congress Party, historically the country's most influential political force.

Polls suggest the Congress Party could face a drubbing because of corruption scandals and recent years of economic slowdown. Modi has been credited with ushering in strong industrial growth in the western state of Gujarat, where he has been chief minister for 11 years.

The elections will be key to the future of the Nehru-Gandhi family, a dynasty that has ruled India for much of its post-independence history.

The family is facing its biggest political threat in over a decade, with Rahul Gandhi, the 43-year-old family scion, leading the Congress Party's struggling campaign. While Gandhi has been presented to voters as a youthful leader who can rejuvenate India's faltering economy, many see him as privileged, aloof and out of touch with everyday Indians.

The party has not even formally declared Gandhi as its candidate for prime minister — political maneuvering aimed at protecting him from being made into a scapegoat if the party and thus the family are forced from power.

But even as the Congress Party faces a backlash, critics of Modi question whether the Hindu nationalist can be a truly secular leader, noting that he has failed to take responsibility or apologize for anti-Muslim rioting that left more than 1,000 dead in his state in 2002. He is accused of doing little to stop the rampages, though he denies any wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime.

The BJP was the last major party on Monday to release its campaign manifesto, which envisions India's path toward full development through futuristic infrastructure projects such as high-speed trains, 100 new modern cities and wireless Internet facilities in public places.

Both the Congress Party and BJP were hoping for a strong showing in the seven northeastern states, nicknamed the Seven Sisters, occupying a remote region nestled among China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and populated by a diverse mix of ethnicities. Gains for the Congress Party among the 25 northeastern seats would help offset expected losses elsewhere in India, while the BJP wants to seize one of the Congress Party's traditional strongholds.

Several groups of separatist ethnic or Maoist rebels have threatened violence during the vote.

Authorities deployed 25,000 police and paramilitary troops to guard polling stations. Helicopters were put on standby, and borders with Bangladesh and Bhutan were sealed.

"We are not taking chances," said A.P. Raut, police assistant director-general in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.

Assam has experienced several separatist insurrections since 1979, when the rebel United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, was formed. Although one ULFA faction is in peace talks with the central government, another is still engaged in roadside bombings and ambushes of government soldiers.

Other ethnic rebel groups, like the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, are also cause for worry, with one faction threatening northern Assam politicians.

The northeast could also be affected by rebels inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, who have called for an election boycott and threatened to disrupt the vote. Maoist rebels are active in 20 of India's 28 states.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press