Violence casts shadow as India votes in new round

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GUWAHATI, April 23 (Reuters): Millions of Indians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, voted Thursday under the shadow of violence in the second stage of a month-long general election that could throw up a weak coalition.
Hundreds of thousands of police guarded some 200 million eligible voters across swathes of central and southern India after 16 people were killed in Maoist rebel violence during last week's first phase of voting.
The ruling Congress party-led coalition appears to lead against an alliance headed by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but both may need the support of a host of smaller regional parties to win office.
Under armed guard, Singh cast his vote in Guwahati, the principal city of the northeastern state of Assam which was hit by a string of separatist bombs in the run up to the election.
Singh is the official candidate for the Congress party, which has overseen an economic boom since coming to power in 2004. But the outlook for the next government is less rosy due to a yawning fiscal deficit just as the economy suffers a downturn.
There is also speculation that a group of smaller parties known as the "Third Front," who are often seen as opportunist and an unknown quantity in government, could spoil the chances of the BJP or Congress.
The second round of polling, the biggest of the five phases, involves people from India's rural heartland, the IT centre of Bangalore and some states where Maoist rebels are strong.
As rain fell Thursday, long queues of people formed at polling stations in Guwahati. Armed police guarded the booths.
"There is no cause for fear and I have come here to vote on my own," said Biren Barua, a mid-30s voter who waited to cast his ballot in Guwahati.
Police said they were locked in a gunfight with Maoists near the eastern city of Jamshedpur Thursday after the rebels attacked a security convoy.
Maoists killed five election officials in a land mine blast in Chhattisgarh state during the last round of voting. Eleven police were also killed across the central and eastern "red belt."
The staggered voting is to allow security forces to move around the country to curb any attempt to coerce an electorate more than twice the population of the United States.