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Lok Sabha election 2024: World’s biggest poll kicks off as India begins voting - BBC News World’s biggest election kicks off as India begins voting - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Arunoday Mukharji Thanks for joining us for the first day of voting in India's marathon general election. We're ending our live coverage now, but you can head here to see all that happened on day one.
Reporting from Tamil Nadu This page had contributions from Meryl Sebastian, Cherylann Mollan, Soutik Biswas, Zoya Mateen, Nikhila Henry, Nikita Mandhani, Danish Alam, Arunoday Mukharji, Yogita Limaye, Samira Hussain, James Coomarasamy, Nikhil Inamdar and Thangadurai Kumarapandian. It was produced by Geeta Pandey and Sharanya Hrishikesh in Delhi.
Sadananda Barakandaj, 35, owns a small business selling clothes. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, he lost more than $30,000 (about £26,500) and is still trying to make up his losses.
No matter who comes to power, he wants stronger economic policies to help small businessmen like him. Being the only breadwinner for a family of three is difficult, he says.
Mr Barakandaj grew up in the eastern state of West Bengal. But poverty forced him to migrate to Chennai in the south for work at the age of 16.
His story is similar to that of millions of migrant workers in India who travel from their home states to more prosperous ones to find work.
The poorer among them were among the worst-affected during the pandemic. Many lost jobs and had to walk for hundreds of miles to get home as India imposed consecutive lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus.
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