Despite similarities, the EU and India are very different.

The general elections in India ended on 19 May and results were announced on 23 and 24 May. Elections to the European Parliament in Brussels were held on 23 and 26 May and the results came out by 27 May. India has 29 states and 7 Union Territories, whereas the European Union (EU) has 28 nation states, which will be reduced to 27 when Britain leaves the EU in, what is known as Brexit. India has 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects, whereas the EU has 24 official languages. An Indian citizen can travel freely anywhere within India and so can citizens of 26 countries that make up the Shengen area. Europe is much cooler, with highest temperatures seldom exceeding 30 Celsius, whereas in India temperatures can reach 45 Celsius, or higher. Europe used ballot papers for its elections and counting is done by hand, whereas India uses electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the belief that it cuts out cheating. Election officials can misguide illiterate voters, machines can be switched, and results can be easily altered when counting the votes. Trouble with fixing elections is that officials don't know how many results to fix and it invariably ends up in a landslide victory for the political party in power. The US and European countries have been reverting back to paper ballots but Indian officials are adamant about the safety of EVMs. India follows a first-past-the-post system, in which the person with the highest number of votes wins the seat even if the winning margin is just one vote. Though different countries in Europe follow different systems of elections, "The most important common rule, however, is that countries must use a proportional system", which means that seats are divided according to the proportion of votes each party gets. This results in a fragmented parliament. This time the European People's Party (EPP) of the center right and Socialists and Democrats (S&D) of the center left, which used to rule Europe, have both lost seats. "The Greens and Liberals have made gains, as well as the right-wing nationalist and populist groups." Which means Europe must always be governed by a coalition of parties. In India too the Nationalist Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the elections, but actually the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi won absolute majority with 303 seats, which gives him absolute power for the next five years. "Elections in India and the European Union in recent days have resulted in gains for politicians with strident nationalist messages," wrote J Griffiths for the CNN. "In some EU countries the out-of-touch elites were savaged", whereas in India voters responded to Modi's "doubling down on Hindu nationalism and anit- Muslim rhetoric". So despite huge differences the peoples of the EU and India are quite similar. Of course, India is poor while the EU is rich. That is what matters.