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Indian polls enter rocky third stage

3 killed in Maoist rebel attacks; voting underway in 6 NE states

Agencies
Maoist rebels killed three soldiers guarding polling officials in central India yesterday, highlighting security concerns in the world's biggest elections as the third phase of voting gets under way today.
The rebels staged the attack in Chhattisgarh state in the country's insurgency-racked centre one day before polling is held there, as voters in the restive northeast of the country cast their ballots.
After the first two phases in the northeast, 91 constituencies in 14 states/Union Territories will vote in the third phase today, sealing the fate of heavyweights such as Kamal Nath (Chhindwara), Meira Kumar (Sasaram) and Nitin Cadkari (Nagpur), among others.
The nine-phased Lok Sabha elections began on Monday and will conclude on May 12.
Polling was held yesterday for six Lok Sabha seats in the four northeastern states of Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya besides Arunachal Pradesh where Assembly elections to the 60-member House were also held.
Hundreds of extra security forces have been deployed in neighbouring and underdeveloped Nagaland, where rebels from tribal groups have waged a decades-long campaign for more rights.
Nagaland registered 81.47 percent polling, Manipur 80 percent, Meghalaya 71 percent and Arunachal Pradesh 55 percent, according to election office sources.
This was the first time that Nagaland webcast poll proceedings in 84 polling stations out of 2,059 stations.
Polling was largely peaceful except Congress' candidate in Konsa (W) Assembly constituency in troubled Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh was kidnapped by suspected militants, but was released unharmed later.
Polling was not held in a disputed area in Longleng district of Nagaland bordering Assam.
In Chhattisgarh, police said rebels attacked a convoy of paramilitary commandos as they were returning from escorting election officials to a polling station, 415 kilometres (260 miles) south of the state capital Raipur.
"In a gun battle with the Maoists, three commandos of the central paramilitary forces were killed in the Chintagufa area," chief of the state's anti-Maoist operations Rajinder Kumar Vij told AFP. Three soldiers were injured.
The deaths underscored the security challenges facing election organisers in India. Separatist and Maoist insurgencies afflict large parts of the northeast, northwest and forested central areas.
Another three soldiers were injured elsewhere in Chhattisgarh when they stepped on a mine laid by rebels, who have been waging a decades-long campaign for greater land and other rights for tribal groups, Vij said.
In Meghalaya, defying a 12-hour bandh called by a banned separatist group in the Khasi Jaintia hills, voters turned out in large numbers in urban areas, state Chief Electoral Officer P Naik said.
In Arunachal Pradesh, Congress, BJP, NCP and People's Party of Arunachal, besides Independents, were in the fray in the Western and Eastern parliamentary constituencies which have been traditional Congress strongholds since 1975, except in 2004 when BJP made a dent.