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Electioneering Ends in Four States
Pervez Bari
Agencies, Arab News
BHOPAL, 30 November 2003 — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made a last-ditch effort yesterday to woo voters in Delhi as a new opinion poll showed the ruling Hindu nationalists were set to lose elections in the country’s capital.
“Our government has kept inflation under control. Employment opportunities are rising,” Vajpayee told a rally in a middle-class suburb. “People are seeing the development that is happening in the country. We want to change the face of Delhi.”
According to an opinion poll conducted by The Times of India daily, carried out last week, the main opposition Congress party is set to win with a majority of 37 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
Campaigning ended yesterday for tomorrow’s polls where voters will choose governments in critical northern states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi — all held by Congress, which leads the national opposition.
But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is tipped to win the big heartland state of Madhya Pradesh and is locked in a close contest in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh ahead of national elections due next year, other poll surveys have shown.
More than 90 million people are eligible to vote, but campaigning has been muted and sparked little interest in many areas outside the main cities.
Although local issues and caste allegiances will be the deciding factors, India’s northern states are important in national elections and any gains will be a confidence boost for the BJP, which has described the polls as the semifinals before next year’s national election.
But BJP gains are unlikely to be enough to encourage Vajpayee to go to the polls earlier than the scheduled time of October, analysts say.
Regardless of the outcome next week, he remains far more popular than Italian-born Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, despite the fact that her party rules 16 states.
The heat and dust generated by two weeks of acrimonious electioneering focused, among other issues, on the cash-on-camera scam involving former federal minister and BJP leader Dilip Singh Judeo.
The blaring of loud speakers and public meetings in support of candidates came to a close at the appointed hour and their supporters fanned out for door-to-door canvassing to woo the electorates.
While Congress has brought up corruption as its main poll plank, its main rival BJP sought to cash in on lack of development in these states and “achievements” of the NDA government at the center.
In Madhya Pradesh an estimated 37.8 million voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to elect the 230-member state assembly. There are 2171 candidates in the fray here.
In Rajasthan there are over 34 million voters who would elect from 1,541 candidates in the fray for the 200-member assembly. There are 819 hopefuls for the 90 assembly seats in Chhattisgarh and their fate will be decided by an estimated 13.5 million voters.
In Delhi, over 8 million voters will select 70 members of the capital’s assembly. There are 817 candidates in the fray there.
Elaborate arrangements have been made to conduct free and fair elections in the four states. Nearly 19,500 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force will assist the police in the four states.
The CRPF has deployed 65 companies in Chhattisgarh, 55 in Madhya Pradesh and 10 in Delhi. Five companies each have been kept in reserve for Chhattisgarh and Delhi.
The high-voltage campaign in the four states saw all political parties pressing into action all their top leaders.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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