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INDIA-VOTE
Security high in restive Kashmir as India votes again
NEW DELHI, May 6, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – India held the next stage of its
marathon election on Monday, with 90 million people eligible to vote in key
seats for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party and security heavy in restive
Kashmir.
The world’s biggest poll has been plagued by violence, with militants
throwing a grenade at a voting booth Monday and shooting dead a candidate in
south Kashmir over the weekend. Last week 15 paramilitaries and their driver
were killed in an attack by Maoist rebels in Maharashtra state.
India’s mammoth electorate of 900 million vote on seven days between April
11 and May 19 — Monday marking the fifth day — with results due on May 23.
At the 2014 election, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 39 of the 51
constituencies up for grabs on Monday, as he swept to power and the
opposition Congress party suffered its worst ever result.
These include 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with
220 million inhabitants, part of the backbone of Modi’s support.
But late last year Congress won state elections in three other states in
the region, boosting its hopes of unseating the BJP.
In recent days rivals Modi and Rahul Gandhi, Congress leader, have engaged
in acrimonious exchanges — with the prime minister taking a pop at Gandhi’s
assassinated father, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
“Your father was termed ‘Mr Clean’ by his courtiers, but his life ended as
corrupt number 1,” Modi told a rally, linking Rajiv to a major defence
purchase scandal during his tenure.
“Your Karma awaits you. Projecting your inner beliefs about yourself onto
my father won’t protect you. All my love and a huge hug,” Gandhi tweeted in
response.
During the campaign Gandhi has called Modi a “thief” over alleged
irregularities in a multi- billion dollar deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter
jets from France’s Dassault Aviation.
– Violence –
Also voting were parts of the unsettled region of Indian-administered
Kashmir, with tens of thousands of extra security forces on duty in India’s
only Muslim-majority state.
Militants on Monday threw a grenade that exploded near a voting booth,
although no one was injured.
On Saturday night Gul Mohammad Mir, who belonged to a local unit of Modi’s
BJP, was shot dead at his house in south Kashmir.
Protestors in the Pulwama area of Kashmir threw stones at election staff
Sunday as they were brought under heavy security to the polling stations.
Police fired at the crowds injuring at least two people, and polling staff
were later transported in helicopters for their safety.
Voter turnout in Indian Kashmir — where thousands have died in clashes in
recent decades, most of them civilians — has barely crossed 10 percent.
Also voting Monday was Amethi, home to some 1.5 million people and the
seat of Congress leader Gandhi, long considered an electoral stronghold for
India’s Gandhi-Nehru political dynasty that has given the country three prime
ministers since independence in 1947.
Smriti Irani, a former actress turned politician, was the main challenger
for Gandhi’s seat.
Amethi is one of the two constituencies where Rahul is contesting,
something that is allowed under Indian election rules — the other is
Wayanad, in the southern state of Kerala, and an easier bet.
Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi, 72, the Italian-born former head of Congress,
was contesting from Rae Bareli near Amethi, which is also voting on Monday.
Modi has made national security and fighting terrorism his main campaign
theme to blunt opposition attacks on his economic record.
He is seen as favourite to win — albeit with a reduced majority, meaning
Modi may have to seek alliances with other parties.
“I’m not happy with the current government,” said voter Mohammed Anees in
Leh in the Ladahk region, high in the Himalayas in India’s far north. “We
want a change.”
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1530 hrs