New Election Ordered in Gandhi’s District; Ballot-Rigging Suspected

Indian election officials today ordered new balloting in Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s district because of vote fraud, dealing a major blow to Gandhi in his effort to maintain his leadership in the national election.

The Election Commission also said two police chiefs in the district, Amethi, should be fired for their role in the ballot-rigging.

The voting has been marked by allegations of fraud since it began Wednesday, and it is shaping up as the most violent in independent India’s 42-year history.

The new balloting in the 98 precincts covered by the commission’s ruling will take place on Monday.

At least six more people died in election-related clashes Saturday, including a state assembly candidate killed by a bomb as he rode his motorcycle in the northern town of Allahabad. That brought the death toll to 107 since Wednesday.

A respected weekly released a poll saying Gandhi’s beleaguered Congress-I party would be “hard pressed” to win 200 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, Parliament’s lower house, which will choose the next prime minister. Sunday magazine based the poll on interviews with 11,500 voters.

The top candidate to become prime minister should the opposition win told the Associated Press he would not take the job.

Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who heads the five-party opposition coalition known as the National Front, said he would run the party instead.

“It is political suicide to depend too much on an individual,” Singh said. “So I have decided not to accept any proposal to become the prime minister.”

There was no voting Saturday, but violence persisted.

In Calcutta, India’s biggest city, political activists battled, and a polling agent was killed in the turmoil. Police fired in the air and used tear gas to disperse the angry mob.

Two other people were killed in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. At least 150 Indians fled into Bangladesh because of political clashes in the far eastern state of Tripura.