NEW DELHI, 1 December 2003 — Millions of Indians will vote today to elect four new state assemblies in balloting seen as a litmus test of popularity for India’s ruling Hindu nationalists ahead of general elections in 2004.

Some 94 million adults are eligible to vote in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, where the main contestants are the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress party.

In the fray are 5,348 candidates vying to fill a total of 590 seats — an average nine contesting each post — in the four states where more than two dozen political parties will also test their own popularity.

Some 70 percent of 500,000 voters exercised their franchise in Nov. 20 elections in the northeastern state of Mizoram but results for that vote and those today will only be released after vote counting ends on Dec. 4.

India’s Election Commission, watching for fraud and political malpractice, said 20,000 federal troops would back thousands of state police personnel during the voting.

“We are (also) holding forces in reserve for the four states,” the Central Reserve Police Force paramilitary unit said.

Eunuchs, a former bandit, street hawkers and maharajahs are among the hopefuls, with the Congress and the BJP fielding the maximum number of candidates for the four states, all last held by the Congress.

The two political adversaries are also proposing three female candidates for the top jobs in the states amid protests that the number of women in Indian politics remains abysmally low.

The BJP is putting forward former princess Vasundhra Raje Scindia in Rajasthan and Hindu nun Uma Bharati in Madhya Pradesh for the chief minister’s posts. Both are challenging male incumbents.

In Delhi, the Congress’ hugely popular incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is warding off a limp challenge from the BJP.

In all, the BJP has fielded 56 women while the Congress, headed by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, has 65 female contestants.

“Monday’s elections are an important event for both the Congress and the BJP but, having said that, one has to remember that regional parties will use the exercise to test their own popularities,” analyst Anand Ojha told AFP.

“They will play a crucial role in the state polls as well as in the national elections because none of India’s two main national parties can hope to form a federal government without the help of coalition partners,” Ojha said.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP party has since 1999 led a 23-party coalition government at national level.

The stakes are also high for the Congress, which has wrested power in half of India’s 28 states in the past five years, as Gandhi’s foreign roots are seen as a stumbling block in her bumpy ride to the prime ministerial office.

Electioneering by the BJP and Congress this year has been among the liveliest in India’s electoral history with the two bitter foes pulling out all stops to discredit each other ahead of today’s vote.

“It seems that BJP leaders are vying with one another to find a place in a book of records for indulging in bribery and corruption,” said the leader of the Congress.

“The BJP promised a clean government when they came to power at the center but they are deep in corruption. Scandals after scandals speak loudly about their character,” Gandhi said.

Vajpayee counterattacked at a separate pre-poll rally.

“The Congress is leveling nonstop, baseless allegations whereas there should not be character assassination in democracy,” Vajpayee said.

“The people will never forgive the Congress even if it apologized for causing hardship to them,” Vajpayee said, listing purported failures of the party in the four states it rules.

Six More Killed in Kashmir as Fragile Truce Holds on Borders

Six people died in separatist violence in Kashmir, where a truce on the de facto border between India and Pakistan held for a fifth day yesterday, police said.

Suspected rebels stopped a passenger bus in the village of Palriya Palmar in Indian Kashmir’s southern Doda district Saturday evening, dragging out a Muslim policeman and shooting him dead, police said.

A girl sustained injuries in the shooting.

In the same district suspected rebels shot dead a Muslim civilian, a police spokesman said, adding that the motive behind the killing was not known.

In downtown Srinagar, the summer capital, suspected militants raided a roadside tea stall and shot dead a Muslim youth.

“The deceased was a driver by profession. Police are investigating why he was killed by militants,” the spokesman said.

In Kangan, 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Srinagar, security forces shot dead a militant, while one of the two policemen injured in an attack Friday in Pampore on Srinagar’s outskirts died in hospital.

In the southern Sidhra forests on the outskirts of Jammu, Kashmir’s winter capital, a militant and a policeman were killed and five, including a policeman, were injured in a gunfight yesterday.

— Additional input from agencies