8 Die, 250 Hurt as Elections in India Trigger Violence

Indians turned out in massive numbers Monday to vote in three state elections seen as a referendum on the popularity of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Eight people were killed and more than 250 injured in election violence.

At least 76% of 50 million people eligible to vote in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Kashmir cast ballots for 3,239 candidates running for 505 state assembly seats, officials said. India, the world’s largest democracy with 780 million people, consists of 24 states and eight territories.

More than 300,000 police and security personnel were deployed at the polls, but election violence erupted in two states, officials said.

Most of the violence, which included acid throwing and arson, was reported in the southern coastal state of Kerala, where a governing coalition led by Gandhi’s Congress-I party was challenged by a leftist alliance. Congress-I, traditionally weak in the south, does not hold or share power in any other southern state.

Looting and Arson

In Kerala, where the most closely contested elections took place, six supporters of the leftist opposition alliance and two backers of the coalition government were killed, the Press Trust of India said. More than 100 people were injured and looting and arson were reported, the news agency said.

Police said a Congress-I worker was stabbed to death by leftist coalition workers at Kayyar. In retaliation, they said, five Marxists were pulled from a jeep at Cheemeli and fatally stabbed, allegedly by workers of the Congress-I led United Democratic Front.

The Marxist Party office in Cheemeli was then set on fire and acid bottles were hurled inside, police reported.

The other two stabbing deaths, also involving leftists and Congress-I supporters, occurred in separate clashes in other areas of Kerala, police said.

Police said more than 150 people were injured, 36 seriously, in 60 incidents across Kashmir. Police used batons and tear gas and fired into the air to disperse a crowd that tried to occupy polling booths around the summer capital of Srinagar, about 400 miles northwest of New Delhi.

State election officials said they have ordered voters to cast ballots again in 15 polling stations where clashes or vote rigging occurred.

In West Bengal, the election was peaceful. Officials reported a 65% turnout despite a boycott and general strike by Gurkhas in the northern part of the state. The Nepali-speaking Gurkhas are campaigning for a separate state.

Gandhi’s Stiffest Test

Polls opened at 8 a.m. and closed in all three states by 5 p.m. Vote counting was to begin today and results were expected by late Wednesday, officials said.

The elections represent the stiffest popularity test for Gandhi since he was elected prime minister with a massive majority in December, 1984, two months after his mother and predecessor Indira Gandhi was assassinated.