NEW DELHI, 14 February - India's ruling coalition, led by the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, was bracing for a poor show as the country began the first stage of voting in four states yesterday. The elections began in Punjab, which borders Pakistan and where officials said voting was marred by cases of shooting between supporters of rival candidates. But there were no reports of deaths.
Polling in populous Uttar Pradesh, the traditional heartland of the BJP, starts today.
Early exit polls in Punjab by Zee and Aaj Tak television stations showed the BJP and its local ally there being trounced by the main opposition Congress party. Just after voting closed at 5:00 p.m. (1130 GMT), Aaj Tak said Congress and its allies were likely to take 91 of the 117 state assembly seats to 17 for the BJP and local partner Akali Dal. Zee gave the Congress grouping 80 and the BJP coalition 28.
Punjab is India's food bowl but its farming industry has been badly hit by the military build-up and the laying of thousands of land mines along its border with Pakistan.
The small hill state of Uttaranchal and the rebellion-torn northeastern state of Manipur were also due to vote in polls covering a population of more than 200 million. Results for all four states will be known Feb. 24. In the tiny northeastern state of Manipur, where tribal rebels oppose the election, two children died in a bomb explosion while hoodlums set a private vehicle on fire. Some 60,000 police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in the state where tribes people accuse the federal government of plundering the region's natural resources and neglecting the local economy.
Opinion polls had suggested the BJP, which controls Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal and whose allies rule Punjab, would lose ground in the elections despite the hard-line stand against Pakistan, as voters register disapproval of existing state governments. Defeat in the state elections would not be enough to drive the BJP from office in New Delhi. But it would damage the credibility of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during the high-risk confrontation with Pakistan.
In the closing days of the campaign, the BJP has been playing up its tough stance on Pakistan, and on terrorism - which included a post-Sept. 11 ban on an Islamic students' union, to try to swing the vote. But this has been dismissed by opposition parties and voters alike as an election stunt.
"They are playing up the Pakistan issue only for political gains," said Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose populist Samajwadi Party is tipped to outstrip the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
