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Polling for 83 LS constituencies on Wednesday

         New Delhi: Eighty-three parliamentary constituencies will be up for grabs at Wednesday's fourth and penultimate round of elections in seven states. An electorate of 10.72 crore is expected to exercise their franchise and choose their representatives from among 921 aspirants, including Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,Congress president Sonia Gandhi , Samajwadi Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Union ministers Murli Manohar Joshi, Sharad Yadav, Shahnawaz Hussain and Subhash Maharia. Two former chief ministers Kalyan Singh (Bulandshahr) and Laloo Prasad Yadav (Madhepura) are also in the May 5 race, which has 64 women contestants. The polls tomorrow will cover 30 of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 25 seats in Rajasthan, 12 out of 29 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, the last 12 of 40 seats in Bihar, one each in J and K and Nagaland and two in Arunachal Pradesh. While the Election Commission has ordered videography in 14 sensitive constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, including Lucknow from where Vajpayee is seeking re-election, tight security has been arranged at 1,08,615 polling stations.

Rajasthan Congress chief killed in accident (Go To Top)

          Jaipur: The president of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, Abrar Ahmed, died in a road accident early this morning. Reports reaching here said that Ahmed's car collided with a truck in the town of Devli in Tonk district at around 3.30 a.m. Ahmed was going from Ajmer to Kota for election work. Three others, including the driver and a security guard, also died in the crash. Abrar Ahmed was the minister of state for finance in the Narasimha Rao-led Congress government in the 1990s.

15 injured in Chhindwara pre-poll clash (Go To Top)

          Chhindwara: At least 15 people were injured in a clash between Congress and BJP workers at Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday. District officials said a fight broke out in Harrai and Chhindi villages of Chhindwara, where polling will be held on Wednesday. Trouble started when over a dozen unidentified persons stormed some villages, 65 km from Chhindwara, and opened fire in the air, leading to clashes in which swords, knives and lathis were used, police said. They said 13 Congress workers and two BJP activists were admitted to the district hospital with serious injuries while the others were discharged after first aid. As tension mounted in the area, additional police forces have been deployed in the affected villages to control the situation.

           "This morning at Chindi village there were some violence, and twelve people have been hospitalised because of this. It was a clash between Congress and BJP workers and related to elections," said R P Singh, Additional SP, Chhindwara.

Security beefed up for Mulayam's Mainpuri constituency (Go To Top)

          Mainpuri (UP): As the Uttar Pradesh prepares to vote on May 5, the home turf of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, the man who many say will be India's king-maker, has literally been fortified. Over 1.2 million people will vote in the highly caste driven and violence-prone constituency and authorities are taking no chances to ensure a trouble-free election. The conduct of elections in Yadav's Mainpuri constituency, famous for the dacoits in the region, has always been a tough task for the Election Commission (EC) to handle as bogus voting, arm-twisting and booth-capturing have become regular affair during the polling.

          The EC has taken special measures to avoid any unruly incidents on the polling day. "We have a total of 776 polling centres and 1,061 booths. Of these, 260 have been put in category A, which is the hypersensitive category, 216 are in the B category and the remaining are ordinary. Our preparations are extensive and fool- proof, even for the ordinary booth the deployment is on a war footing, so we are fully prepared," Rajkumar Shiv Sharma, senior superintendent of police in Mainpuri, said. The Commission has ordered videography in 14 sensitive constituencies including Yadav's Mainpuri constituency, in the polling booths on the voting day. The Commission has also appointed two Inspectors-General of Police to supervise the law and order and other security arrangements during the polling in the state on Wednesday.

           Apart from 30 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, 50 more constituencies spread across six states will vote on Wednesday. The elections in Mainpuri has become a center of attraction as the wrestler-tuned-politician Yadav has become the most sought after leader in a tigthening election in the world's largest democracy. Yadav has been pitchforked into the centre of the battle for power in New Delhi, ahead of the final stages of voting on Wednesday and May 10 in a staggered election. Both the BJP-led coalition and the Congress and its allies are forecast to fall short of the halfway mark of 273 seats needed to form a government from the 545-member parliament.

          Yadav's centre-left Samajwadi party, expected to win 25-30 Lok Sabha seats from its bastions in Uttar Pradesh, could then decide who rules the country of one billion people. The Samajwadi Party, whose support base consists of farmers, lower caste Hindus and Muslims, has traditionally opposed the BJP, seen as biased against minority Muslims. Though Yadav and the BJP have come close to each other in the last six months, any public indication that he planned to support the ruling BJP could drive Muslims away from the Samajwadi Party, hurting it in the polls, analysts say. On the other hand, though Yadav depends on Congress support to run his state government, he refused a pre-poll alliance with Congress as that would ruin any chance of joining hands with the BJP after the elections, analysts said. Now, in a bid to convince voters that he is his own man, Yadav has been suggesting reviving a third front consisting of regional, centre-left parties which ruled India in 1996-98 and had Yadav as defence minister. Analysts said this was his way of posturing to become leader of a third coalition and the prime minister, an ambition he has nursed for years. Across villages and towns in Uttar Pradesh, with nearly 170 million people, hundreds of supporters ride bicycles -- the Samajwadi Party symbol - to his rallies, ringing bells and shouting "Mulayam Singh Yadav's turn has come."

EC action against Mehbooba (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: The Election Commission said on Tuesday it would take action against People's Demoractic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti for allegedly intimidating voters during the third round of polls last week. Acting on a complaint by National Conference party, the Commission directed a case be registered against PDP. "In Jammu and Kashmir it was alledged that Mehbooba Mufti had gone to a polling station and intimidated the voter over there and had allegedly pulled the veil from the face of the voter. The commission has got a report on that and it has decided to ask the concerned authorities there to file an FIR against her," Deputy Election Commissioner A.N.Jha told reporters here. Mehbooba, while making a tour of the polling stations in Srinagar constituency during polling on April 26, had removed the veil of a woman alleging her to be a bogus voter. National Conference said investigation by some journalists present at the scene had revealed that the woman in question was a genuine voter. Mehbooba is PDP's candidate from Anantng, which goes to polls on Wednesday in the fourth phase of polls.

Nagaland on high alert for polls (Go To Top)

          Dimapur: The north-eastern state of Nagaland is on high alert as it goes to the polls in the fourth phase of elections for its single parliamentary seat on Wednesday. Additional companies of police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in all sensitive areas, and security is at an all-time high in the entire state. The absence of threats or boycott calls from rebel groups, including the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) (NSCN) make the elections in the insurgency-racked Nagaland this year unprecedented. Police officials said that the law and order situation in the state was good, and the state looked all set for peaceful polls on Wednesday.

         In November 2002, the government lifted a 12-year ban on NSCN (I- M), the biggest among the northeast's 50-odd rebel armies, to pave the way for its leaders to return to try end a conflict that has claimed 50,000 lives over more than five decades. The peace process between the rebel group and the Central government received a boost when NSCN chairman Isak Chisi Swu and party general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah met deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani in New Delhi in January last year. The ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) led by the Nagaland People's Front (NPF), which also has the federal ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a junior partner has been cashing in on the peace process. India's main Opposition Congress party, the NPF and the Janata Dal (United) (JD-U) are prominent parties in the fray.

          Constituted in 1963, the state has an entirely tribal population and is often described as a conglomeration of village republics. Over one million people in the state are eligible to vote. Eighty three parliamentary constituencies will be up for grabs at Wednesday's fourth and penultimate round of elections in seven states. With three of the five phases of elections over, the latest exit polls results indicated that the BJP along with its allies fall short of the 273 seats needed to rule in the 545-member lower House. The Congress, which ruled for decades after independence from Britain in 1947, could win anything from 190 to 210 seats, along with its allies, far more than the 140 seats held now. Votes will be counted on May 13 and results are expected that day.