Indian politicians shun Muslim slums in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD, India, (Agencies) - No politician campaigns for votes in the slums of Ahmedabad that are home to Muslims displaced by mobs of rampaging Hindus.
Curtains were drawn on campaigning for the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for Thursday (today). Polling will be held in 9 states and 2 union territories for a total of 107 Lok Sabha seats.
All arrangements are in place for conducting the polls peacefully. After the end of the first two phases, all eyes are now set on the third phase.
In third phase, Gujarat will face the electoral heat for 26 seats, Madhya Pradesh for 16, Uttar Pradesh for 15. Whereas, 14 seats will go for polls in West Bengal, 11 each in Karnataka and Bihar, 1 each in Sikkim, Jammu & Kashmir, Dadra And Nagar Haveli, and Daman & Diu.
The fate of 1567 candidates will be sealed in the EVMs on Thursday, including 101 women candidates. Stalwarts like Sonia Gandhi, LK Advani, H D Deve Gowda, Jaswant Singh , Dijvijay Singh and Priya
Dutt are vying to make their mark in this phase.
If we take stock of the hopefuls pitted by the national parties in this phase, Bahujan Samaj Party leads the trail with 102 candidates while BJP grabs the second position with 95. The third place goes to Congress with 93, followed by NCP with 19, CPM at 15, CPI at 9 and RJD at 8. With the end of third phase, polling will be over for a total of 372 Lok Sabha seats.
Since 2002, when the worst riots since partition left an estimated 2,000 Muslims dead in the western state of Gujarat, thousands have been pushed off the map - and have little faith in the world’s largest democracy.
“How would you feel if you have to live below a mountain of litter and drink polluted water everyday?” said Riana Bano, a Muslim widow and mother of four girls.
Bano’s husband was murdered and the family house looted by Hindu fanatics in the communal riots that swept across the state. The pogrom was in retaliation for an alleged attack by Muslims on a train that left 59 Hindus dead, although a central government probe later found the train fire to be an accident.