India's poll marathon enters crucial phase

Millions of voters joined the third wave of India's month-long elections yesterday, with security ramped up as the staggered polls moved to the volatile Kashmir Valley and the financial capital Mumbai.

Indian police and paramilitary forces imposed a lockdown on Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar after two days of violent anti-poll protests and placed key separatist leaders under house arrest.

Nearly 145 million people were eligible to vote in phase three of the five-stage national ballot, which is widely expected to result in a shaky coalition government that will have to steer the country through an economic slump.

The third round saw India's two main parties, the ruling Congress and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, go head to head in a number of key states which will have a major bearing on the national outcome.

In Kashmir, all eyes were on the number of voters. A strong turnout would deal a blow to separatist groups who have called for a poll boycott to reinforce opposition to Indian rule in the Muslim-majority region.

"I am voting for development. Separatists need to de-link elections from the struggle for freedom," said Kashmir businessman Iqbal Dar, 49, who cast an early ballot. Voters were also out in India's financial and entertainment capital of Mumbai, where Islamist militant attacks in November killed 166 people.

"Security is the only issue. It's the only reason people are stepping out to vote, especially in this area. We have seen it, we have felt it and we know all about it," Chintan Sakariya told AFP after voting in south Mumbai.

Mr Sakariya, 29, cast his ballot a stone's throw from the Nariman House complex of the the ultra-orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubovitch movement which was stormed by the Islamist gunmen.

The jeweller was trapped with his wife and family in their third-floor flat opposite, unable to leave as the gunmen fired and threw grenades at anyone they saw. His friend's parents were killed as they tried to flee.

But national security is not a priority issue everywhere, with the bulk of India's 714 million voters likely to cast their ballots on local issues or according to their caste and religion.

Among other states that voted yesterday were parts of impoverished Bihar and populous Uttar Pradesh in the north, Gujarat in the west, the southern rural state of Karnataka and leftist-dominated eastern West Bengal.