& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Rightist BJP challenging top three contenders for power

India goes to polls today
NEW DELHI May 19: India goes to the polls tomorrow to decide who will rule the country for the next five years, with the national press nervously predicting no clearcut winner and a changed political scenario. reports AFP.
The election follows 18 months of political confusion that has been three governments and no national budget
and for the first time In history a stridently Hindu revivalist party staking its claim to power at the centre.
The saffron-clad party, the rightist Bharatiya Janata (Indian People's) Party (BJP) is challenging the top three contenders for power In the world's largest democracy — former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Vishwanath Pratap
Singh and Chandra Shekhar
The well-heeled BJP described by the Illustrated Weekly of India as ‘until now on the lunatic fringe, seemed at the last minute to be a non winner but has already upset traditional election arithmetic and is In a commanding post tlon to influence post-electoral alliances.'
Religious and caste feeling were simmering Just below flash point in several politically sensitive localities tn midsummer heat that touched a seertng 47 degrees centigrade (117 Fahrenheit) In the cen tral plains, with 204 dead In pre poll bloodshed.
Police Imposed curfews tn two Indian cities torn by riots and bloodshed on the eve of the elections.
Police clamped a curfew on parts of a northern industrial city where rioters hurled homemade bombs and set shops ablaze. At least three people were reported killed in Kanpur. 400 km (240 miles) east of Delhi on the sweltering Ganges river plain. Police used batons to disperse stonethrowing crowds setting fire to the office of a local communist party candidate.
The United News of India (UNI) news agency said it was the second major northern city where curfew was imposed at the weekend ahead of the elections.
Police slapped a curfew on parts of the Hindu holy city of Varanasi on Saturday after supporters of rival parties clashed using homemade bombs and hurling stones. At least one person was killed, 50 were Injured and two slum districts were set on fire, police said.
Some 1.5 million police and paramilitary forces were deployed across India on Sunday ahead of the parliamentary elections that analysis say could be the bloodiest ever.
Security
About 40 per cent of India's voters will cast ballots on Monday. The remainder will vote on May 23 and 26. Watching them will be the largest security force deployed for an election in India, where seizures of poll booths by armed gangs and voter intimidation are common.
Most llth-hour opinion polls had Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled the country at the head of the staid Congress (1) almost without interruption since independence in 1947, as a firm front-runner.
But almost to a man the polls doubted whether Gandhi, 47. who Bungled his last bid for power in 1989 losing out to VP Singh, and now running on a stability manifesto could win enough seats in the 545-seat Parliament to rule alone.
minedly egalitarian platform, which poll pundits have predicted will woo not only the poorest of India’s poor but a large slab of the Muslim vote from the Congress(I).
National newspapers in their poll eve editions were nervously predicting yet an other hung parliament, and the Press Trust of India (PT1} ran a lengthy analysis of the pros and cons of coalition gov eminent and on whether India was destined to or could live them from now on.
New Delhi at the weekend was under a red alert after suspected Sikh separatists opened fire on a crowd attending an election rally late Friday, killing two and wounding 35.
Tension was also reported in the eastern port city of Calcutta ruled by a Marxist government, and in Bihar, India’s most violent state where 44 of the 100 poll related deaths have been reported.
The tussle in Bihar's with those in many of the crucial northern Hindi "cowbell" stales centered on the fight between VP Singh and the other candidate, for millions of lower caste and "untouchable" Harijan votes.