India's Uttar Pradesh and its economic hopes key to Modi's run

Lives literally depend on the current Indian election. At a 100-bed government-run hospital in the city of Jaunpur, goats roam the corridors. Used syringes and vomit dot the floors. Walls are stained red where visitors chewed tobacco and spat it out.

The radiology department in a hospital that serves up to 2,000 patients a day in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh closed three years ago. There weren't enough doctors. Windows are cracked, blood supplies are low, and ceiling fans don't work in temperatures reaching 38 degrees Celsius.

"I'm sure patients have died because we don't have the right type of blood to give them," said Alok Mani Tripathi, 28, a hospital doctor who plans to vote for the first time in elections that conclude on May 16. He's supporting opposition candidate Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress, along with two regional parties that dominate politics in the state.

"We have been let down by everyone," he said in the Shaheed Uma Nath Singh District Hospital's transfusion unit. Blotches of congealed blood mark the hospital's walls. "Modi is the only person who can turn the state around," Tripathi said.

In a state that holds the key to power in India and has one of the lowest turnout rates, dissatisfied residents such as Tripathi are critical to Modi's aspirations to become prime minister. The BJP leader is betting his message of economic development set against the government's failings will unlock voter apathy and trump caste-based allegiances that shape the political contours of one of India's poorest states.

Uttar Pradesh, where child mortality rates rival sub-Saharan Africa, is home to 200 million people and sends 80 of the nation's 545 lawmakers to parliament, more than any other area. Voting will start today in the state, one of nine rounds throughout the country that began on April 7 and will end on May 12. The results of the election will be announced four days later.