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POLLS IN MAOIST-TROUBLED BIHAR

India seals Nepal border

Afp, Patna
India has sealed the border with Nepal in the lawless northeastern state of Bihar ahead of assembly elections there to prevent cross-border violence by Maoist rebels, officials said yesterday.
India's Home Ministry has warned that Maoist rebel groups within the country are cooperating with guerrillas in Nepal, where a leftist insurgency has claimed more than 12,000 lives since 1996.
About 90,000 Indian federal troops will guard more than 12,700 polling stations in Bihar, where 12 million people are eligible to vote Sunday in the third round of a four-phase election.
"We are going for 100 percent cover of central forces in all the constituencies as the border areas are very sensitive," state Home Secretary H. C. Sirohi said in Bihar's capital Patna.
Bihar's porous border with Nepal, which includes jungle areas in the lowland terrai region, will be guarded by troops from both sides, and air force helicopter gunships will patrol the skies above Bihar, he said.
India's Maoist-linked and outlawed People's War Group enjoys widespread support among Bihar's marginal farmers and has called for a poll boycott, labelling the election a sham backed by feudal landlords.
The Election Commission has staggered the poll in order to provide security.
Polling in the first two rounds has been largely peaceful, although two people were killed in election-related violence.
"In the first two phases of polls last month the Maoists failed to disrupt the polls, and that is why they might try some mischief this time," Sirohi said.
With 80 million people, Bihar is India's second most populous state after neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, and a make-or-break battleground for national political parties.
It is also known as India's most
lawless state, with police recording at least 5,000 murders and 12,000 abductions a year.
Ten people were killed in February polls, which ended with a hung assembly and Bihar being placed under the rule of a federally-appointed governor.
Among the contestants now is former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, the wife of Indian railways minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, who was charged with graft in a multi-million dollar animal feed scam that is still before the courts.
After 15 years at the helm, the Yadav family and their regional Rashtriya Janata Dal party seem to be in danger of losing their stranglehold on power to the National Democratic Alliance, political analysts say.
The NDA is a coalition of parties that held federal power before losing to a Congress party-led coalition in May 2004.