Indian PM confident of poll victory

India’s Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee flashed a “V” sign for victory as he voted in today’s round of parliamentary elections and expressed confidence he would be returned to office for another five years, despite predictions his coalition might lose seats.

Some of the country’s most violent regions were voting today, the fourth of five phases in the three-week elections, and one man was killed in a grenade explosion in Jammu-Kashmir.

Vajpayee’s coalition was strongly favoured before the elections on the strength of a booming economy and peace overtures with rival Pakistan. But opinion and exit polls after the first phases of voting suggested no bloc would win outright control of Parliament.

“I am not nervous” about exit polls, Vajpayee told reporters before casting his ballot in the city where he is seeking re-election. He then displayed the ink on his finger that proved he had voted and flashed a “V” sign.

Asked whether his coalition would win a majority, he said, ”I am confident about that.”

Vajpayee voted in the northern city of Lucknow, with a 23% Muslim population, where veiled women, some carrying babies, made their way past armed security guards to vote.

If Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance does not win enough seats to form a majority government it would have to draw more small parties into the coalition, making it less stable.

Vajpayee, 79, is seeking re-election to the seat from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. His opponent is an old friend and former member of his Cabinet, Ram Jethmalani, 80, who has questioned Vajpayee’s mental and physical fitness to lead the nation of one billion, and objected to the pro-Hindu agenda of Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

The main opposition Congress party led by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi argues that the government’s prosperity drive has been limited to cities and has not touched the lives of people in villages, where most Indians live.

The Election Commission said 45% of today’s 108,583 polling stations stretching from Kashmir to eastern Bihar were violence-prone, and more than 270,000 troops were deployed to guard voting booths across the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu-Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

There were demonstrations throughout the district that was voting in Jammu-Kashmir, where Muslim separatists have called for a poll boycott and threatened to kill anyone participating in the elections.

A grenade thrown on to a street in Anantnag, the main town, killed a bystander and wounded four, police said. It was not near a polling station, but was meant to frighten people, police said.

Hours before the polls opened, suspected Islamic separatists attacked two voting stations with grenades, wounding three election officials and six security guards, police said. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the 14 years of fighting between Islamic militants and Indian forces.