AHMEDABAD/ NEW DELHI, 12 November 2002 — Communalism again reared its ugly head in the western state of Gujarat when four people were killed in the state yesterday shortly after Chief Minister Narendra Modi held a reelection rally in a sensitive area, police said.

Two Hindus were stabbed to death after an election rally in the Kheda district and a bomb later destroyed a shop in the same area, killing the owner and injuring his son.

Mourners carrying the bodies of the stab victims, killed after an election rally addressed by Modi ahead of Dec. 12 elections, also went on a rampage, looting and burning shops and damaging cars, the police said. Another body with stab wounds was found on a highway in Kheda but police were not sure if the victim was a Hindu or a Muslim, they said. Kheda is 80 km south of Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmedabad.

Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh touring the state yesterday drew a parallel between next month’s elections in Gujarat and those held in Kashmir.

"They (the international community) are as much interested in Gujarat (polls) as they were in Jammu and Kashmir. The first question they will ask is: Did we give enough opportunity to the riot-affected people to exercise their franchise," Lyngdoh told reporters here.

Lyngdoh and election commissioners T.S. Krishnamurthy and B.B. Tandon arrived here yesterday on a two-day visit to inspect the arrangements for the polls.

The commission yesterday asked Gujarat’s police chief to identify the constituencies where additional security forces were needed to ensure free and fair elections in a state still recovering from the sectarian strife of February-May. The police chief will make a presentation on this to the commission on Nov. 18.

The commission has asked for an additional 400 companies of paramilitary forces to be deployed in the state. Krishnamurthy said the commission might consider giving the option of postal ballot to those violence-affected people who had migrated out of the state. It has asked the state election commissioners to help it locate such people.

He said polling booths would be set up in the neighborhoods where people displaced due to violence were living in relief camps run by private groups. The commission also asked the state government to provide it with a report on a rally that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) plans to conduct from Nov. 18. "Several people and organizations have expressed their concern over the proposed rally. I have sought a report on the rally," Lyngdoh said.

People’s groups such as the Lok Sangharsh Samiti and Citizens’ Initiative have strongly opposed the rally, arguing that it might trigger communal passion.

More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, have died in communal violence in Gujarat since February. Human rights groups have accused Modi’s administration of turning a blind eye to violence against Muslims.

The main opposition Congress party, which is hoping disillusionment with the violence will lead it to topple Modi next month, held its own rally in Kheda district later yesterday. Modi later campaigned in the town of Godhra, where a mob on Feb. 27 torched a train carrying Hindu activists. The attack left 58 people dead and sparked riots across the state.

Speaking to supporters, Modi said the only fault of the victims of the train attack was that they were chanting Hindu religious slogans. "If we cannot chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ (‘Long Live Ram’) in India, where else will we say it, in Italy?" he said.

It was a reference to the Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who was born in Italy but holds Indian citizenship. She is the widow of assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Sonia on Saturday promised to make an all-out effort to oust the BJP government from power in Gujarat and said she was ready to join ranks with other political parties for the purpose.

"The Gujarat election is a challenge for us and for all those who believe that the road to progress is not that of violence," Sonia said at a conclave of chief ministers from Congress-ruled states.