People cross the Chenab river on a trolley tied to wires to cast their vote at Harshi village in Doda district, north of Jammu, yesterday.
Reuters/Bangalore
India called a quarter of its 815mn voters to polls yesterday, the biggest day of its staggered election, in areas ranging from Himalayan passes to a southern IT hub and western sugarcane farms.
The country is now over halfway through its nine days of voting for a new parliament in the world’s biggest ever election, with the ruling Congress party struggling to hold ground against the Hindu nationalist opposition.
Narendra Modi, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate for prime minister, has been wooing voters with promises to rouse India’s economy from its slowest growth in a decade and create jobs for its booming young population.
A decision by the Election Commission to reprimand a senior Modi aide for making speeches deemed to stir tensions with minority Muslims underlined critics’ assertions that the party is a divisive force.
But in the latest large opinion poll, taken in the first week of April, the BJP and its allies were forecast to win a narrow majority in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, compared with previous surveys predicting that they would fall short.
“Modi could be the change we need,” said software engineer Murali Mohan, after casting his vote in a suburb of Bangalore. “I want to see constructive work, economic development in this country,” said Mohan, 39.
Voting took place in 120 constituencies across 12 states, with election materials airlifted to parts of Jammu and Kashmir, while mobile polling stations in vans were used in the deserts of Rajasthan.
Voting runs until May 12 and results are due on May 16.
Modi’s image remains tarnished by Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, where he is chief minister, on his watch 12 years ago.
More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the violence. Modi denies accusations that he failed to stop the riots and a Supreme Court inquiry found he had no case to answer.
In an interview with ANI television news on Wednesday, Modi accused reporters of smearing him over the riots.
“People have forgotten what Modi did to people of this country. I think saving people’s lives is more important than development,” said Shafina Khan, a 21-year-old Muslim teacher in Kamshet village in Maharashtra who voted for the Nationalist Congress Party, a Congress ally.
Election authorities on Wednesday issued an order rebuking Amit Shah, who runs the BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh over his speeches. “The Election Commission is the supreme body and I abide by its decision,” Shah said on his Twitter account after the order.
The commission last week banned Shah from election rallies and meetings. The latest order did not mention the ban, or what new restrictions might now be sought.
Congress, led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, is forecast to suffer its worst-ever defeat after a decade in power due to the economic slowdown, high inflation and repeated graft scandals.
A former media adviser and a former coal secretary have both released books in recent days that paint Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a well-intentioned but weak figure who answers only to party president Sonia Gandhi.
Clone candidates clutter contests
Voters in a parliamentary constituency in western India could be forgiven for asking the real candidates to please stand up. The race in Maval, a constituency of 1.9mn voters in Maharashtra, has two real contenders: One is Shrirang Barne of the Shiv Sena, an ally of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that is on track to form the next government. The other is Laxman Jagtap of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), an ally of the ruling Congress Party. Yet the ballot has a total of five men sharing those names. Such ‘clone’ candidates are often fielded to gain an edge by splitting the vote of political rivals. “They want to confuse the voters and eat into each other’s share,” said Mohan Kadu, the presiding officer for the election commission in Maval. Both candidates declined to comment on who had fielded their namesakes.
