April 19 (Bloomberg) -- About 670 million Indians from the Himalayas to islands in the Bay of Bengal begin voting tomorrow to decide who will lead the world's most populous democracy for the next five years. 

More than 4,000 candidates and 700 parties are competing. In reality, the choice for India comes down to two people: 79-year-old Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, 57, the leader of the main opposition party and widow of former leader Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed by a suicide bomber in 1991. 

Both have promised to oversee economic growth of 10 percent, make investment easier for foreign companies and, most importantly, end poverty by 2015 for India's 1 billion people, two fifths of whom live on less than a dollar a day. 

``Regardless of who wins, they still are pushing for further reforms for faster economic growth, and that takes care of my biggest concern,'' said Devan Kaloo, who helps oversee $6 billion of stocks at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore. 

Indian exports rose 17 percent in the year to March 31 as automobile makers raised overseas sales and China bought more steel. 

Most opinion polls have Vajpayee's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leading Gandhi's Congress party. Both would need the support of minor parties to rule. 

Not Easy 

The BJP-led coalition may win 149 of the 253 seats in nine states where elections will be held on the first three days of polling, the Indian Express reported. A survey conducted in mid- March predicted the alliance would win 173 seats. 

The Congress party and its allies may win as many as 89 seats, up from an earlier forecast of 65, according to the poll by AC Nielsen. 

Gathering votes in the world's seventh-biggest land mass is not easy. Voting will be held on five separate days during the next three weeks. The number of eligible voters is equal to the combined population of the U.S. and the 12 European nations that use the euro, or more than a tenth of the world's people. 

As many as 177 million will vote tomorrow to elect 142 members in the 545-seat lower house of parliament, the Election Commission said. 

Election Violence 

The rest will vote on April 26, May 5 and May 10. Counting of votes will be held on May 13 and the result will be declared on the same day. 

The Election Commission is setting up 700,121 polling stations and will pay 3.5 million people 150 rupees ($3.40) a day to oversee the ballot. About 130,000 police and soldiers will guard polling booths to avoid a repeat of 1999 election violence when at least 22 people were killed by left-wing guerrillas opposed to elections. 

More than 1 million electronic voting machines will be used for the first time to cast votes in the world's second-most populous nation and Asia's third-biggest economy. 

The battery-powered machines will cut the number of invalid votes and reduce the time taken to count the ballots, the commission says. 

Pony Express 

The machines will save 8,000 tons of paper previously used to cast votes. And it spells the end of a tradition started after independence from Britain in 1947 of using ponies to ferry voting material to 110 remote booths in the northern Himachal Pradesh state, said Manisha Nanda, the state's chief electoral officer. 

Instead, 260 officials will walk about six miles carrying electronic voting machines to as few as 20 voters in villages such as Hakim, located at an altitude of 15,500 meters, which are not accessible by road. 

This effort is replicated across 35 states and territories in a country with 17 official languages, five main religions and traditional divisions of class and caste. 

Elections are a colorful event in India, with party flags streaming from banyan trees, garlanded politicians driving to villages in decorated Toyota pickups, buses and trucks with projector screens on top to show re-runs of their speeches to rallies of as many as 100,000 people. 

Big Spenders 

To woo support, party workers hand out free headbands, pens, towels, caps and earrings with party symbols and pictures of leaders and candidates. 

Ensuring no-one votes more than once is simple -- every voters' index finger is daubed with indelible ink. About 14,000 liters (3,694 gallons) of ink will be used. 

For the more than 40 percent of the Indians who can't read, each party puts a symbol next to their candidates' names on the voting machines. These symbols vary from the lotus of the ruling BJP to the bicycle used by the Samajwadi Party. 

While the commission expects to spend as much as 10 million rupees organizing the election, New Delhi-based Center for Media Studies has estimated 50 billion rupees will be spent by political parties and candidates on public meetings, travel and advertising. That's three times the amount spent in 1999. 

Many villages will vote as directed by their elders. And despite all the handouts, their decision will be simple. 

``Every party woos the village elders, but we will pick the one most likely to deliver on promises,'' said 41-year-old Bhishan Deep, who works as a porter in the hill town of Solan, in Himachal Pradesh. 

To contact the reporter on this story: Subramaniam Sharma in New Delhi at ssharma@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor of this story: Bruce Grant at bruceg@bloomberg.net.

Source: Bloomberg.com