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India prepares for election second phase

NEW DELHI: India looked forward on Sunday for the next round of general elections expected to produce a hung parliament after a relatively peaceful first phase marred only by a bus bombing and isolated violence.

Electoral officials said there had been a turnout of around 60 percent among the 160 million people in 150 constituencies across 14 states and territories entitled to vote in Saturday's first phase of the general election.

The turnout in the 1991 general election was 61 percent.

The next round of the election, which pits Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's Congress party against the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the National Front-Left Front alliance and several regional parties, is on Thursday.

The vote is staggered over six days ending on May 30 to allow security forces protecting the ballot and electoral officials to redeploy across the vast sub-continent.

All but six of the 543 constituencies being contested will have voted by May 8 when counting begins. A clear picture of the state of the parties will emerge by May 11, and it is expected to show a hung parliament.

Exit polls will not be published until after polls close on May 7.

The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that at least eight people were killed in poll-related violence across India on Saturday, as well as 13 who died in the explosion aboard a bus outside Delhi.

In the last elections, in 1991, about 300 people were killed in campaign and election day violence.

Police said Saturday's blast could have been aimed at voting in Delhi, where the bus began its journey, but there was no hard evidence of this.

The attack was jointly claimed by two little-known Sikh and Kashmiri separatist groups in a statement to newspapers in Srinagar. The same pair claimed responsibility last weekend for bombing a Delhi hotel, killing 17 people, but police later said they were not sure a bomb had caused the building collapse.

Electoral officials said there would be a fresh vote at some 50 of the more than 200,000 polling stations where balloting took place on Saturday.

That is far fewer than usual in violence-prone Indian elections.

The low-key voting, generally welcomed by voters, was attributed to the strict enforcement of electoral rules which also stripped the campaign of its usual carnival atmosphere.

"Before there was no discipline," said Delhi shopkeeper A.R. Khan. "It is a very peaceful manner this year."

Opinion polls predict the opposition BJP, which promotes Hindu cultural nationalism and advocates channeling foreign investment from the consumer sector towards infrastructure, will emerge the biggest party but short of an overall majority.

The BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former foreign minister, has attacked Rao's record on corruption and promises clean government.

Rao has been campaigning on a platform of stability and the need to see through the economic reforms he introduced after taking office in 1991, which have opened India's doors to foreign trade and investment.

Rao accuses the BJP of fomenting religious dissent between India's 750 million Hindus and its 110 million Moslem minority.

In the event of a hung parliament, analysts believe the BJP will find it difficult to persuade either of the other two major groups into coalition, leaving it to the left and Congress to hammer out the basis for a government between them.-Reuter