AHMADABAD, India, 13 December 2002 — A party blamed for the massacre of hundreds of Muslims in an orgy of violence early this year was seen leading in an election in the western Indian state of Gujarat yesterday. Voting for the state assembly was officially reported at 63 percent.

Results will be announced Sunday. Two television stations conducted exit polls and predicted the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP would be returned to power. Zee TV said it projected the BJP would win 100 to 105 seats in the 182-seat assembly, compared to 65 to 70 for Congress. An exit poll by Aaj Tak television gave the BJP 93 to 109 seats compared to 72 to 88 for Congress.

Tens of thousands of armed police protected voters but couldn’t quell all Hindu-Muslim violence in the pivotal elections that could affect India’s national politics in coming years.

The presence of 55,000 security personnel, armed with rifles and sticks, prevented major violence by the time polls closed. Shortly after sunset, however, more serious clashes began.

Amid incidents of stone throwing and evidence of ballot tampering, voter turnout was 63 percent, said A.N. Jha, deputy election commissioner. That is close to the record of 64.39 percent in the 1985 assembly election, but short of the 70 percent the BJP had predicted.

In the most serious case, police fired their guns to halt clashing mobs who couldn’t be stopped by tear gas in Jambusar, 160 km (100 miles) south of Ahmedabad after shops were set on fire and stones hurled in violence reminiscent of the worst riots. Police imposed an indefinite curfew and didn’t immediately know how many had been injured.

Just after the polls closed, Hindus threw bricks at Muslim houses, injuring six people, in the Jamalpur area of Ahmedabad, the state’s commercial center, said deputy police commissioner S.K. Dave. Some Muslims, taking shelter in a mosque, retaliated. The police used tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested two Hindus, Dave said.

Two Muslims were stabbed and seriously wounded in Kheda, 48 km (30 miles) west of Ahmedabad. At least 22 Hindus and Muslims were injured and several shops were burned down in other clashes west of the city, according to police, who fear more violence when results are announced.

Police also said that three BJP candidates had been saved from mobs.

Some 33.2 million people were eligible to vote, including 176,000 who fled the riots that erupted Feb. 27 in the town of Godhra. Revenge violence raged for three months across the state.

In the Maninagar constituency of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has been blamed for doing little to stop the attacks on Muslims, some 3,000 people marched through the streets alleging that the federal Election Commission had excluded them from the electoral list.

In the district of Naroda Patia, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, some Muslims who had fled the state during the riots found on returning to vote that their names had been omitted from the electoral list.