India is set to vote in the world’s largest ever general election, setting the stage for a mammoth exercise in democracy with nearly a billion people eligible to head to the polls across just over six weeks.

India's election starting on Friday is the world's largest electoral exercise with more than 18 million people voting for the first time.

Raj Sud, 94, has voted in almost every election held in independent India, bearing witness to the eventful journey of a diverse, and now the world’s most populous, democracy over the last 76 years. Nearly 970 million people are eligible to vote in India’s 6-week national election starting Friday,