India election: Violence in West Bengal and Kashmir mars second day of world's biggest vote

Here are the key events from the day's voting, as they happened

Indian voters queue up to cast their vote at a polling station in Siliguri, West Bengal (AFP/Getty Images)

Sporadic violence and some disappointing turnouts have marred the second day of voting in India’s mammoth general election.

The worst clashes were seen in West Bengal, where rival party activists came to blows, a candidate’s car had its windows smashed and a number of electronic voting machines (EVMs) were broken.

Unlike on day one of the vote, no one was reported to have been killed in the violence. But the clashes, on a day when only three of the state’s 42 constituencies were contested, are likely to lead to increased security measures in the coming weeks.

The clashes in Chopra, Darjeeling meant that scores of people were unable to reach the polling station. Ajay V Nayek, a police official, said across the state polling was “overall peaceful”, and that those who were turned away were later escorted by security forces to cast their ballots.

More than 155 million people were eligible to vote across the 13 states where polling took place on Thursday, and turnouts varied hugely across the country.

In Srinagar, Kashmir, where separatists had called for a boycott of the election, just over 12 per cent of those eligible had cast their votes by 3pm, with only a few hours left before polling closed. That compared to some seats where the number was well over 70 per cent.

A police official told Reuters there had been “at least 40” separate incidents of stone-pelting directed at the security forces, who are ubiquitous in the valley at the best of times and were on high alert for the day’s voting.

Police deployed tear gas and baton charges in downtown Srinagar as protesters tried to disrupt the vote, officials said. At most polling booths, armed security personnel and election officials vastly outnumbered voters.

Away from those hotspots, however, the day’s voting appeared to pass without serious incident. In Manipur, voters complained that chief minister N Biren Singh turned up in the afternoon and jumped the queue - reportedly skipping past some people who had been waiting since 7am.

And at a Delhi press conference to announce a BJP candidate for a later phase, a protester pelted the ruling party’s spokesman and MP GVL Narasimha Rao with shoes. Rao immediately dismissed his assailant, who was bundled out by security, as being “Congress-inspired”.

Here’s the run-through of the day’s election events, as they happened.

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Key Points

• Voting opened at 7am IST (2.30am BST) across 13 states and closed at 6pm
• Tamil Nadu election trends on social media as key state sees all its seats decided today
• Violence reported in Darjeeling, West Bengal as rival party workers and riot police clash
• CPM candidate has car windows smashed in attack, accuses rival party
• Internet services are suspended across Kashmir as Srinagar seat goes to polls
• Election Commission watches Modi biopic and prepares to give ruling to Supreme Court

[18 April 2019 09:16 · Adam Withnall]

Chennai has been voting under particularly tight security measures today, and as of 11am turnout was the lowest in the state in Central Chennai seat, at just over 22 per cent.

It comes after there were deadly clashes on the first day of voting, last Thursday 11 April, in the neighbouring southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

The Times of India reported there was a very high police presence in crowded central urban neighbourhoods like Triplicane and Royapettah.

Voters reportedly struggled to find their nearest polling booth, after polling agents were told they could not set up shop more than 100m from a police station, in case of violence.

So far just about the only report of clashes comes from West Bengal, where pictures show damage to the windscreen of Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPM) candidate Raiganj Mohammad Salim's vehicle in Islampur.

The party's leadership claims workers from the rival national party Trinamool Congress (TMC) were behind the attack.

[18 April 2019 10:12 · Adam Withnall]

Voting has been postponed in the Vellore seat in Tamil Nadu following the seizure of Rs 110 million (£1.22m) in unaccounted cash allegedly from the home of a local opposition politician, Kathir Anand. 

His party accused federal tax authorities of raiding the homes and offices of party leaders running against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party. The governing party in the state, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), is an ally of Modi's party. 

The Election Commission said that authorities had recovered 2 billion rupees (£22m) from leaders, workers and supporters of various political parties in the state in the past month. They suspect the money is for buying votes. 

[18 April 2019 10:53 · Adam Withnall]

There has been a minor incident during a news conference at the BJP's main headquarters here in Delhi, where a member of the audience threw a shoe at the party's spokesman.

GVL Narasimha Rao was speaking to announce the Hindu nationalist Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur as the party's candidate for Bhopal.

He was in the process of denouncing Congress for bringing "false cases" against Hindu activists like Ms Thakur - accused over a 2008 terrorist bomb attack.

The man who threw the shoe was immediately bundled out of the news conference by security personnel, video of the incident shows. According to the Press Trust of India, the man identified himself as a doctor.

After the shoe flew across the stage, Rao immediately suggested it was the act of a "Congress-inspired person". 

[18 April 2019 10:56 · Adam Withnall]

Here's an ANI clip of the shoe-throwing incident:

[18 April 2019 11:05 · Adam Withnall]

Unemployment and jobs creation is perhaps the single most important issue for voters at this election, according to pollsters.

Leaked official jobs figures came out in January, with the country already in full election mode, showing that unemployment was at a 45-year high. The government was accused of suppressing the numbers but claimed the report was not yet ready for publication.

On Wednesday, a new report came out with further damning statistics on the matter. Compiled by the Azim Premji University and titled 'State of Working India', it says that at least five million men lost their jobs between 2016 and 2018, roughly correlating with Narendra Modi's controversial policy of demonetisation.

"This analysis applies to men only. When we take women into account, the number of jobs lost will be higher," the report states.

The report said that overall unemployment rate in India was around 6% in 2018, double what it was in the decade 2000-11. 

It's more bad news for the government which, since January, has sought to make national security the number one election issue instead.

   

[18 April 2019 11:13 · Adam Withnall]

There are more reports now of violence in West Bengal, following the news earlier that a candidate for CPI(M) had his car attacked by rival workers.

In Chopra in Darjeeling, police clashed with a group of protesters who alleged that the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the ruling party in the state, was not allowing them to vote.

Officials said the agitators threw projectiles at riot police and were met with tear gas shells and baton charges.

Also in Chopra, reporters said there were clashes at a polling station between TMC and BJP workers, during which some of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were smashed. 

Darjeeling is one of only three hotly contested seats in West Bengal voting today. It has been held by the BJP in the past two terms, in what is otherwise a state dominated by regional parties. 

[18 April 2019 11:16 · Adam Withnall]

Vivek Oberoi, the lead actor in the Modi biopic which had its released suspended by the election commission, has been speaking to reporters.

Earlier, we brought you the news that the commissioners had been ordered to watch the film and reconsider whether it would prejudice the vote.

Here's what Mr Oberoi told reporters:

[18 April 2019 11:36 · Adam Withnall]

Turnout is low in Srinagar even by the standards of the Kashmir valley, where separatists have called a boycott at this and past elections. Officials said just 5.7 per cent of the electorate had turned out by 3pm. For comparison, many seats across the country had passed 30 per cent turnout by 11am.

And there have been dozens of minor clashes there too, between anti-election protesters and police. 

Officers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), India's armed police presence in Kashmir, have been deployed in many thousands to try and safeguard the vote.

Police have deployed tear gas to disperse some protests, the Reuters news agency reported. "There has been stone pelting by protesters in at least 40 places," said one senior police officer.

Stone-pelting has become a weekly ritual in Srinagar, a show of protest against the security forces that usually takes place after Friday prayers.      

The state of Jammu & Kashmir is currently operating under governor's rule and is due a local election to restore a state government, but it was deemed too insecure to carry out state election in tandem with the general election at this time.

[18 April 2019 11:50 · Adam Withnall]

There may be some violence in Darjeeling but across West Bengal, turnout has been OK.

With three more hours of voting to go, turnout in the seat of Jalpaiguri - which is reserved for "scheduled" (traditionally downtrodden) caste candidates, was up at 71.32 per cent.

In Darjeeling, it was 63.14 per cent while in Raiganj it was 61.84 per cent. 

The state average stands at 65.43 per cent, still with some way to go to reach the 82 per cent turnout of 2014.

In 2014, the national average was just over 66 per cent - that was comfortably the highest turnout in India's history. 

[18 April 2019 12:37 · Adam Withnall]

One of the most closely-watched seats in today's election is being contested in Bangalore South, between the prominent Congress leader BK Hariprasad and the BJP's youngest election candidate, 28-year-old Tejasvi Surya.

The selection of Surya, a charismatic young local BJP activist and member of the party's social media organising unit in Karnataka, raised eyebrows. Bangalore South had been a relatively safe seat for the BJP for the late Union minister HN Ananth Kumar, who held it from 1998 until his death last year. Some BJP leaders had wanted the candidacy to go to Mr Kumar's wife.

Surya was up early to vote and posted a video of himself afterwards, nominating three others to get out and cast their ballots and pass on the nomination, thereby creating a chain reaction.

If he wins, Surya would not quite be the youngest Indian MP in history. That accolade was bestowed upon Dushyant Chautala, who was just 26 years and one month old when he was elected to represent Hisar in Haryana in 2014.

It hasn't all been smiles and selfies from Surya, however. Last year he tweeted "call me a bigot, communal fanatic or whatever", before going on to complain that the BJP had lost elections because the Muslim vote had "consolidated", and calling for the BJP to "really become a Hindu party".

Appeals to voters that are seen as stoking race, religion or caste divisions are a violation of Indian election rules.

Surya also briefly won an injunction against many major Indian news outlets, banning them from publishing any "derogatory" news about him, after allegations of sexual harassment emerged on Twitter. The injunction was lifted after an appeal.