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521m voters utterly disillusioned

No single Indian party to win majority in poll
NEW DELHI. Apr 20: With a month to go to elections. none of India • major political par ■>< with a majority and pulling the worlds largest democracy back on to aobd political ground, reports AFP
President Ramaswamy Venkataraman Friday officially gave the go ahead for the country's 521 million eligible voters to go to the polls on May 20, 23 and 28 to select their candidates for parlla
The President s announce ment excluded the troubled States of Punjab and Aosam. where tbe autonomous Election Commission Friday
postponed elections. Nor will Kashmir be going to the polls because of the violent secessionist campaign there.
Elsewhere the elections have been staggered so that security forces can be deployed in erupting at almost any time this Ethnic strife torn land of 850 million inhab Manta
Separatist movements like those tn Kashmir and Punlab have thrived on the political inatabtlity and legislative poral ysis that foltoweJ the defrm of Rajtv Gandhfs Congress (1) Party in elections in November 1909 thus paving the way fora
on shaky and expedient cook
tlons.
In 1989 parties from all sectors of the political spectrum came together against the Congress (fl. accusing it of Incompetence and corruption, the main theme of their cam-P^Next month's polls follow the collapse of the government of Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar after the Congress (I) withdrew Its parliamentary support on which the govern merit was entirely dependant.
This time around, the vari ous parties are talking stability, legislation to help the lower castes and poor and stale secularism a. their main Imucs, but none of these themes alone
dominates the campaigning.
The voters have four main parties or alliances to choose from — the Congress (I), the National Front made up of the Janata Dal of former Prime Minister Vfshwanath Pratap Singh and local parties with support from the left, the Janata Dal (Socialist) of Shekhar, and the Bharaltya Janata (BJP) pro Hindu party dominated by Lal Krishan Advani.
No polls have shown any particular trend and reports in the media also highlighted ap parent lack of public direction.
Congress (1). which kd the country to independence from Britain in 1947 and then
stayed in power for the next 40 years, has promised the country stability, saying the coalitions which followed It in 1989 have led the country to complete disaster.
Ito 1,000 day plan of action promises to end price hikes, create 10 million jobs a year, decentralise power and prt varies part of the economy.
It also promises to adhere to job quotas for the lower castes but without giving fig urea
The decision. of Gandhi's successor. V. P, Singh, last year Io give nearly half of gov ernment jobs to the lower castes k-d i.. . wave of violence and pror.^t bus ales
For hi- pan V. P. Singh has relterati <1 his National Front's position favouring the lower castes and h— promised equal opportunity
The BJP has yet to announce its platform, although Advani has for some time campaigned for Hindu rights and for the building of a Hindu tempfe on the site of a mosque at Ayodhya, which both Muslims and Hindus claim as a holy site and over which both aides have clashed
Shekhar has decided to go with hl. government's record during its four months in power, saying that in that time It claimed the violence caused by V. P Singh.