India set for record voter turnout as parties trade barbs about rule-breaking

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/india-elections-record-voter-turnout-parties-violence

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India was set for a record turnout in its giant, bitterly contested elections on Wednesday after the penultimate stage in the six-week poll saw more than 100 million people cast their votes. In some areas around four-fifths of those eligible cast a ballot.

However, the bad-tempered campaign saw new controversy with parties trading accusations of breaching Electoral Commission rules. The Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata party, called on the commission to be "fair" after their prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, was denied permission to hold major rallies in the northern city of Varanasi where he is standing.

"This is not a banana republic, where a prime ministerial candidate, by a pliant returning officer, is not allowed to address a meeting in his own constituency … India is not still under British rule," said Arun Jaitley, a senior BJP leader.

Modi is leading polls, but whether the BJP can form a government would depend on the margin of any victory. A polarising figure who is suspected by some of sectarian prejudice, the 63-year-old political outsider has stuck a chord with millions of Indian people who blame the outgoing administration, led by the Congress party and in power since 2004, for a lack of jobs, soaring inflation and poor services.

Though Modi has focused his campaign message at a national level on boosting faltering economic growth, relations between the country's Hindu majority and religious minorities, especially India's 150 million Muslims, has been a key and bitterly debated theme in the media.

Jaitley denied the charge that the BJP had sought to exploit such issues.

"The election is being fought on development. We are very confident," he said.

The campaign has been marred by violence which some have linked to campaign rhetoric. Police searched for at least a dozen missing people on Wednesday after finding seven bodies floating down river from a national park in the north-east of the country where Muslim villagers were killed last week.

The BJP has firmly condemned the violence, which it blames on the ruling Congress party. But Modi has highlighted illegal immigration of Muslims from nearby Bangladesh, drawing criticism from his opponents who say he is stirring up trouble.

The worst election violence was in Assam, where at least 41 people were killed by suspected militants belonging to the Bodo tribe in three massacres last week which are believed to be revenge attacks, after Muslims voted against the Bodo candidate in an earlier phase of the staggered polls.

There was more violence in the restive and disputed Himalayan former princedom Kashmir, where separatists have called a poll boycott. In one incident a reserve policeman was injured by a bomb planted at a voting station, police said.

Before the polls election officials predicted a significant rise in the number of voters.

Analysts say it is unclear if the historically high turnouts will benefit a single party.

So far, 66.2% of registered voters have exercised their right to vote, provisional data from the Electoral Commission shows. That compares with the previous best turnout of 64% during the 1984-85 parliamentary election.

Those braving temperatures of more than 40 degrees to vote on Wednesday included around a million in the constituency of Rahul Gandhi, the scion of one of south Asia's most famous political dynasties and the face of the Congress campaign for a third term.

Gandhi, 43, has won twice in Amethi, deep in rural parts of the vast northern state of Uttar Pradesh, in recent elections. The constituency is part of a cluster of seats which have long been held by members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty or their close associates. Uttar Pradesh is a key battleground, home to one in six of India's 815 million voters.

However, it appears unlikely that previous crushing victories in Amethi will be repeated. Many in the constituency are angry about what they say is the slow rate of social and economic progress. Gandhi is a weak public speaker and lacks charisma of other family members, analysts say, and polls suggest the party may be heading for a historic defeat.

"These people [the Gandhis] have destroyed three generations in Amethi," Modi, the son of a tea seller, said at a rally earlier this week. "But good days are coming."