NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, 2 March 2006 — Tens of thousands of people protested in different parts of India before the arrival of US President George W. Bush on his maiden trip to the country, sources said.

Bush arrived in the Indian capital late yesterday.

Protesters at the Ram Lila grounds near New Delhi’s main commercial area shouted “Bush, Bush die!” and “Bush, go back!” “We do not want Bush here as he is the world’s biggest terrorist. He has no place in the land of (Mahatma) Gandhi,” said Abdul Hameed Naumani, spokesman for Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind which organized the protest.

Left-wing parties and workers’ organizations were preparing for similar protests today, while communist lawmakers said they would stage a sit-in demonstration in Parliament against the visit.

Communist parties and Muslim groups in Andhra Pradesh yesterday intensified their protest against Bush’s visit, holding his mock funeral and an expo on ‘US terrorism’.

Hundreds of workers of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) took out a mock funeral procession. Shouting slogans like ‘Down with Bush’ and ‘Bush warmonger go back’.

The CPM and the Communist Party of India, along with other Left parties and their affiliated trade unions and bodies for youths, students and women also held a rally and set afire Bush’s effigy. Bush is scheduled to visit the state capital tomorrow as part of his three-day visit to India.

The communists, who have already launched a signature campaign against Bush’s visit, also unveiled posters that depict the US president as a ‘warmonger’. One of the posters showed Bush’s hands stained with blood.

In another protest, an expo titled “Silent Screams” also began here yesterday. Organized by the Students Islamic Organization (SIO), the students’ wing of the Jamat-e-Islami, the expo highlights what it describes as “US terrorism.”

Activists of Kalinga Sena, a regional political party from Orissa, yesterday staged protests in Bhubaneshwar against Bush’s visit. Hundreds of activists shouted anti-US slogans, waved placards and burned an effigy of Bush at a square in the city.

“We are against Bush’s visit because he is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Sena President Hemanta Rath said.

In southern city of Bangalore, hundreds of youths and students, including those from minorities, held demonstrations and burned effigies of Bush yesterday in protest against his visit to India and called him the “No. 1 terrorist in the world.”

Carrying placards and banners in English, Urdu and Kannada with provocative slogans such as “Butcher of Humanity: Bush Go Back,” “Bush, World’s No. 1 Terrorist” and “America, Down Down,” the protesters burned 10- foot-tall effigies of Bush at the Town Hall and Malleswaram grounds in the city.

Former prime minister and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda held a separate public meeting at the party office in protest against the visit. He also released a copy of an open letter he wrote to Bush, condemning US hegemony. Protests have been reported also from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

US officials say that aside from the nuclear issue, Bush’s visit is aimed at boosting the fast-warming relationship between Washington and the world’s biggest democracy.

“Rather than any specific single announcement...what I think you’ll see on display is a broadening and deepening of the relationship between the United States and India,” National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told reporters traveling with Bush.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the briefing that the two countries were still working to secure agreement on the nuclear deal.

“Obviously, it’s an important — would be an important breakthrough, not just for the United States and India, but also for the role of nuclear power in energy development, for our relationship with India on ... global issues,” Rice said. The agreement will acknowledge India’s military nuclear status and allow the energy-starved nation to accept help for its civilian nuclear program.

To seal the deal, New Delhi must separate its civil and military programs so that military facilities do not benefit from nuclear technology transfers.

On the eve of Bush’s visit, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an interview broadcast on US television network PBS that he was still hopeful an agreement could be reached. The deal would be “a great contribution of President Bush to ending India’s isolation from the world nuclear order,” he said.

Bush is also scheduled to meet chief executives of top US and Indian firms in New Delhi to hear about the bottlenecks impeding business ties. After talks with Indian leaders in New Delhi today.

He is due to give his main address in the Indian capital tomorrow night and leave the following morning for Islamabad. — Additional input from agencies.