India's marathon elections entered the home straight Thursday, with millions voting in a fourth round of polling that saw the two main parties going head to head in a number of key swing states. The penultimate phase of the five-stage election also brought in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley -- the cradle of the Kashmiri separatist movement where polls have long been snubbed as symbols of Indian rule. Thursday's voting encompassed the capital New Delhi and the neighboring states of Rajasthan and Haryana, as well as five other states. However, in Kashmir, scores of protesters clashed with government troops in Indian Kashmir's main city Thursday as residents there, in the country's capital and elsewhere went to polls in a month long parliamentary election. Thousands of troops wearing bulletproof jackets and carrying assault rifles patrolled the streets and guarded polling stations in Kashmiri city of Srinagar amid separatist calls for a poll boycott and a general strike. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse at least one group of rock-throwing protesters, said Prabhakar Tripathy, a spokesman for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force. The protesters chanted slogans against the elections and Indian rule.Suspected rebels also lobbed a petrol bomb at a polling booth in Srinagar, but there was no damage, Tripathy said. In West Bengal, where 17 seats are up for grabs Thursday, one person was killed in Murshidabad district, 90 miles (150 kilometers) north of the state capital, Calcutta, inspector general of police Raj Kanojia said. Congress hopes to gain the upper hand over the BJP by winning some key seats in the communist bastion of West Bengal where its former communist allies are facing a backlash from poor farmers over their policy of seizing land for industry. Exit polls in the five-phase election are banned, and the results are out May 16. The inevitable post-poll rush for more allies is expected to witness the emergence of a shaky, vulnerable coalition at a time when many in India are looking for strong, policy-driven government. The new administration faces a sharp economic downturn after successive years of growth, as well as numerous diplomatic challenges that include the deteriorating situation in neighboring Pakistan.
