Why control is going inside if condition while the condition is false

Function to find minimum number of eliminations such that sum of all adjacent elements is even

def min_elimination(n, arr): 
    countOdd = 0

    # Stores the new value 
    for i in range(n): 

        # Count odd numbers 
       ***if (arr[i] % 2): 
              countOdd += 1***

    # Return the minimum of even and 
    # odd count 
    return min(countOdd, n - countOdd) 

# Driver code 
if __name__ == '__main__': 
    arr = [1, 2, 3, 7, 9] 
    n = len(arr) 
    print(min_elimination(n, arr)) 

Please help me with the if condition. As the code works if(number%2) then control is going inside whereas the first element of list is odd number. So is there any difference between if(number%2) and if(number%2==0). Because when I tried if(number%2==0) control didn't go inside the if as the number was odd(check first element of the list).