NEW DELHI: The fourth phase of India’s staggered national election Monday was marred by multiple clashes that injured at least seven people and led to security forces firing warning shots outside one polling station.
A junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, Babul Supriyo, said his car was attacked by supporters of a rival party outside a polling station in West Bengal’s Asansol district as they tried to stop him from entering.
In West Bengal’s Dubrajpur area, security forces fired warning shots in the air at a group of voters who turned violent when stopped from carrying mobile phones into polling stations, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Clashes between rival groups elsewhere in the state injured seven people, the agency reported. They included a woman who was hit by a crude bomb that exploded outside a polling station, police said.
The Election Commission said police filed a case of trespass against Supriyo, the minister, for forcing his way into a polling station without authorities’ permission.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is facing a major test as it looks to govern for another five years after winning a clear majority in the 2014 election. The party suffered a setback in December when the opposition Congress party wrested power from it in three key state elections — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were among the nine states voting on Monday.
The remaining three phases of the election will be completed by May 19, and vote counting will begin May 23.
Even before Monday, more than half of India’s 543 parliamentary constituencies had already voted in the election, which began April 11. With 900 million of India’s 1.3 billion people registered to vote, the election is the world’s largest democratic exercise.
On Monday, 64% of 128 million eligible voters cast ballots on electronic voting machines, the Election Commission said.
In the first three phases, voter turnout was around 66.4%, the same as in 2014, when Modi’s party came into power. This may not be good news for the BJP, which launched a campaign two years ago seeking to increase voter turnout in the 2019 election.
“The BJP hasn’t been able to enthuse people and overcome the voters’ apathy,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst who has written a biography of Modi.
Modi said in campaign speeches last week that his government was not facing an anti-incumbency bias “as people know that the BJP-led government is working honestly for the development of the country.” He also said all past governments in India had faced such biases in national and state elections.
Under the leadership of political dynasty scion Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party, which had ruled the country for more than half a century after 1947 independence, has struggled to coalesce India’s many opposition parties into a coherent force that could go head-to-head with the BJP.
The opposition says the BJP’s emphasis on Hindu nationalism has aggravated religious tensions and violence against Muslims and other minorities in constitutionally secular India. Hindus comprise 80% of India’s population. There is a large Muslim minority, with smaller minorities of Sikhs, Christians and others.
Surveys show Modi’s BJP is projected to come out first again, though with a smaller mandate.
Latest round of India’s national election marred by violence
Latest round of India’s national election marred by violence
- The opposition says the BJP’s emphasis on Hindu nationalism has aggravated religious tensions and violence against Muslims and other minorities in constitutionally secular India
Uganda partially restores internet after president wins 7th term
- “The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report
KAMPALA: Ugandan authorities have partially restored internet services late after 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term to extend his rule into a fifth decade with a landslide victory rejected by the opposition.
Users reported being able to reconnect to the internet and some internet service providers sent out a message to customers saying the regulator had ordered them to restore services excluding social media.
“We have restored internet so that businesses that rely on internet can resume work,” David Birungi, spokesperson for Airtel Uganda, one of the country’s biggest telecom companies said. He added that the state communications regulator had ordered that social media remain shut down.
The state-run Uganda Communications Commission said it had cut off internet to curb “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks.” The opposition, however, criticized the move saying it was to cement control over the electoral process and guarantee a win for the incumbent.
The electoral body in the East African country on Saturday declared Museveni the winner of Thursday’s poll with 71.6 percent of the vote, while his rival pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine was credited with 24 percent of the vote.
A joint report from an election observer team from the African Union and other regional blocs criticized the involvement of the military in the election and the authorities’ decision to cut off internet.
“The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report.
In power since 1986 and currently Africa’s third longest-ruling head of state, Museveni’s latest win means he will have been in power for nearly half a century when his new term ends in 2031.
He is widely thought to be preparing his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to take over from him. Kainerugaba is currently head of the military and has expressed presidential ambitions.
Wine, who was taking on Museveni for a second time, has rejected the results of the latest vote and alleged mass fraud during the election.
Scattered opposition protests broke out late on Saturday after results were announced, according to a witness and police.
In Magere, a suburb in Kampala’s north where Wine lives, a group of youths burned tires and erected barricades in the road prompting police to respond with tear gas.
Police spokesperson Racheal Kawala said the protests had been quashed and that arrests were made but said the number of those detained would be released later.
Wine’s whereabouts were unknown early on Sunday after he said in a post on X he had escaped a raid by the military on his home. People close to him said he remained at an undisclosed location in Uganda. Wine was briefly held under house arrest following the previous election in 2021.
Wine has said hundreds of his supporters were detained during the months leading up to the vote and that others have been tortured.
Government officials have denied those allegations and say those who have been detained have violated the law and will be put through due process.
