Tight security for today's 2nd round

India's Health and Parliamentary Affairs Minister and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) main election campaigner Sushma Swaraj (C) wears a Assamese Traditional "Japi" Hat during campaigning in Guwahati yesterday. Some 105 million people voted on April 20 as India began the world's largest election, with the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hoping soaring economic growth will win them a new mandate. The five phased elections will conclude on May 10. PHOTO: AFP

"We are fully geared up with security forces deployed across the state to prevent any separatist attacks on polling day," Tripura police chief G.M. Srivastava told AFP by telephone from the state capital Agartala yesterday.

Two frontline separatist groups operate in Tripura, carrying out hit-and-run guerrilla strikes on federal soldiers in the state.

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A powerful faction of the banned Tripura National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) last week agreed to a ceasefire with New Delhi.

"The offer of a cessation of violence could augur well for a peaceful election this time," the police chief said.

He said the authorities were not taking chances, however, and had deployed additional men of the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) along the porous border with Bangladesh.

Elections in Tripura, a leftist bastion where the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) rules the state, is always fought on ethnic lines with both the communists and the opposition Congress making attempts to woo the tribals.

Tribals constitute about 30 percent of Tripura's 3.1 million people, down from pre-independence figures of around 95 percent.

After India's independence from Britain in 1947, the state was subjected to waves of migration by settlers from the plains of then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, angering tribals and sparking the insurrection.

"Our focus will be on peace and development in the state," Gautam Das, spokesman for the ruling CPM, said by telephone from Agartala.

The authorities have flown polling teams to more than 20 voting stations that are inaccessible by road, Srivastava said.

"Most of these inaccessible polling centers are located close to the Bangladesh border and several of them are surrounded by rebel strongholds. So we have decided to airlift our poll officials by helicopter," he said.

In Tuesday's first round of the five-phased legislative poll ending May 10, up to 105 million people turned out to vote in 40 constituencies across the country.

Rebels opposed to the election launched sporadic attacks leaving at least 20 people dead, including in Kashmir and the insurgency-hit states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Manipur, which like Tripura is one of India's seven volatile northeastern states.

The northeast is a sensitive border zone where India meets China, Myanmar, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

A total of 543 seats will be contested in India's polls an electorate of around 670 million.