Congress faces Hindu party in new phase of state vote
BANGALORE (AFP) — India's ruling Congress party and Hindu nationalists face off Friday in the second phase of a crucial state election that analysts say could influence the timing of a national vote.
More than 10 million people are eligible to cast their ballots in districts spread across the central and coastal regions of southern Karnataka. They will choose 66 lawmakers from among 590 candidates.
Karnataka, home to 60 million people and centred on India's software city of Bangalore, will be followed by a clutch of state elections that precede parliamentary polls due by May next year.
Analysts predict the national vote may be brought forward if Congress were to win Karnataka, where the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fighting to win power on its own for the first time in the south.
The results of a pre-poll survey published in the New Indian Express on Wednesday gave the BJP the edge.
The BJP was likely to win up to 39 seats Friday and the Congress up to 22, according to the survey, which Karnataka Congress spokesman V.S. Ugrappa said was "politically motivated and not a true reflection of the electorate's mindset."
An exit poll conducted by broadcaster NDTV after the first-phase vote on May 10 also had the BJP ahead.
Out of 89 seats decided that day, the BJP would win 31 and the Congress 23, with 30 going to the Janata Dal (Secular) party, the poll said. Another 69 assembly seats will be decided in voting set for May 22.
The BJP emerged as the single-largest party in the 224-member Karnataka assembly after elections in 2004 but without a majority needed to form a government on its own.
"This time, we will get the people's mandate as well as a majority," party leader L.K. Advani has vowed.
The hung assembly Karnataka elected in 2004 led to 40 months of political instability under short-lived coalitions. The BJP ruled the state for a week in November before partner Janata Dal forced an early ballot by withdrawing support.
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, led the party to national power by defeating the BJP in in 2004 on a pro-poor ticket.
But the Congress is facing flak from both its allies and the opposition for failing to curb inflation, which has hit a four-year high.
The BJP is flagging rising prices against the Congress and accusing the Janata Dal of political betrayal in a bid to retain its hold over Karnataka's central and coastal regions, where it won almost half the seats in 2004.
"BJP's grip in coastal and central Karnataka is a worrisome factor for the Congress, (which is) desperate to wrest power, as it has more stakes at the state and national levels than its opponent," political commentator Chandrakant Patil said.
The regions include districts such as Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Shimoga and Chikmagalur where Maoist rebels have been distributing leaflets urging people to boycott the "fake election," the Indian Express reported Thursday.
Chief electoral officer, M.N. Vidyashankar, told AFP "adequate security cover" would be provided.
About 100,000 poll officials will oversee the voting, while more than 55,000 police and paramilitary troops will be out in force.
