India completes first phase of voting

NEW DELHI: Tens of millions of Indians joined nationwide queues on Thursday to give their verdict on nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi as the world’s biggest election started amid deadly clashes. 

Election officials reported a heavy turnout across the 20 states taking part in the first day of the massive exercise which involves 900 million eligible voters and will take nearly six weeks to complete. While the 68-year-old Modi remains popular because of his tough stance on national security, he is under pressure over unemployment and controversial economic measures.

Insults and fake news have surged on social media in the run-up to the poll as Modi.’s right wing Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress party stake their claims. On the ground, security forces were on high alert and two members of regional parties were killed in clashes outside a polling station in Tadipatri, Andhra Pradesh state, media reports said.

After five people including a local lawmaker were killed by a roadside bomb planted by suspected Maoist rebels on Tuesday, the insurgents were blamed for two voting day blasts in Chhatisgarh and Maharashtra states. Tens of thousands of armed police, paramilitaries and troops guarded polling stations in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) which is in the grip of an insurrection that took India to the verge of a new war with Pakistan less than two months ago. The Hurriyet leaders and people of IHK observed complete boycott from the polls in IHK.

Thousands of parties and candidates are running for office in the seven separate days of voting in 543 constituencies up to May 19. In first phase, polling was held for 91 seats. Final results will be released on May 23. Some 1.1 million electronic voting machines are being taken around the country for the votes, with some transported through jungles and carried up mountains, including to a hamlet near the Chinese border with just one voter.

About 142 million people were eligible for the first day of voting. Polling stations in northeastern states like Arunachal Pradesh bordering China were the first to open, followed by parts of Bihar in the north. In Assam in the northeast, queues started forming well before voting began, including many of the 84 million first-time voters who could play a decisive role in the outcome.

"It´s a great feeling to cast the vote, which makes me a part of the democratic system and makes me responsible for electing a good leader," Anurag Baruah, 23, told AFP. Modi appealed in an early-morning tweet to his 46.8 million followers to "turn out in record numbers”. He swept to power in 2014 with the biggest landslide in 30 years. Critics, however, accuse him of imposing a Hindu agenda, emboldening attacks on Muslims and low-caste Dalits, re-writing school textbooks and re-naming cities.

Modi has simplified the tax code and made doing business easier, but some promises have fallen short. Thousands of indebted farmers have committed suicide in recent years. Growth in Asia´s third-biggest economy has been too slow to provide jobs for the roughly one million Indians entering the labour market each month.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party and the latest member of his family dynasty hoping to become prime minister, accused Modi of causing a "national disaster".

"No JOBS. DEMONETISATION. Farmers in Pain... Lies. Lies. Lies. Distrust. Violence. HATE. Fear," Gandhi tweeted on Thursday.

"You vote today for the soul of India. For her future. Vote wisely."

Gandhi, great-grandson, grandson and son of three past premiers, has grown in stature since being derided in leaked US diplomatic cables in 2007 as an "empty suit".

But Modi and the BJP´s campaign juggernaut -- he has been addressing three rallies a day in the run-up to voting -- will be no pushover, promising a $1.4-trillion infrastructure blitz.

Playing to its Hindu base, the BJP has committed to building a grand temple in place of a Muslim mosque demolished by Hindu mobs in the northern city of Ayodhya in 1992.

India´s latest military altercation with arch-rival Pakistan in February has allowed Modi to portray himself as the nation´s so-called "chowkidar" ("watchman").

The few opinion polls have given him the advantage but they are notoriously unreliable in India and much will depend on the BJP´s performance in key states such as Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

"It´s difficult to predict," said Parsa Venkateshwar Rao, a veteran journalist and political commentator.

"It reminds me of 2004 when (premier Atal Bihari) Vajpayee and the BJP lost when everyone expected them to win," he said.

Meanwhile, in IHK, complete shutdown was observed against the holding of Indian parliamentary election in the territory and brutal measures against the Kashmiri people and their leadership.

Call for the shutdown was given by the Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik.

It was also aimed at registering protest against the victimisation and harassment of Hurriyat leaders and their kin by India’s infamous National Investigation Agency, the closure of Kashmir’s main highway for civilians for two days in a week and attack by Indian police and troops on inmates at Srinagar Central Jail. All shops, business establishments and educational institutions remained closed while attendance in government and private offices was very thin.

The NIA is harassing Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Muhammad Yasin Malik and Syed Ali Gilani’s two sons in the name of questioning in connection with the false cases registered against them. The JRL in a statement issued in Srinagar appealed to the people of the occupied territory to stay away from the polling.

Meanwhile, The National Conference and the PDP alleged that uniformed personnel coerced people to vote for the BJP and EVMs malfunctioned in some places with the Congress button not working during the first phase of polling in IHK’s Poonch area.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti tweeted a video showing voters raising anti-BJP slogans after they were purportedly roughed up by the BSF for not voting for the BJP.

"A voter at polling booth in Jammu was manhandled by the BSF because he refused to cast his vote for BJP. Using armed forces at polling stations to coerce people to vote for the BJP shows their desperation & hunger to usurp power by hook or crook," she said in her tweet.

The National Conference's Jammu provincial president Davinder Singh Rana also registered his protest on the issue. According to him, a uniformed officer coerced voters in Poonch's Arai Malka area to vote for the BJP. A local administration official reached the spot and the uniformed officer has been removed following complaints by the voters, he said.

The National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah slammed IHK Governor Satya Pal Malik, accusing him of working for the BJP, and not for the people of the IHK. "The Governor sitting in Jammu and Kashmir is BJP's g and not the people of the state... He does not even know when an order from Delhi comes that highway should be closed for two days every week... They should keep in mind that we are not their slaves. If they want to force slavery on us, then they should stay ready, whatever will happen here even we won't be able to control it," Abdullah said at an event here.

Former IHK chief minister Omar Abdullah urged the people of IHK to vote wisely.

"To all the voters in Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipore districts, please go out and vote. Your vote is an opportunity to choose a representative who will espouse our causes and fight our fights in the Lok Sabha for the next five years. So choose wisely," he tweeted.