Local issues dominate India's elections

The elections take place as a worldwide financial crisis begins to clip India's economic growth, but the campaign has been dominated by debates over religion, caste, poverty and a host of local issues. Every party has appealed to voters by promising bundles to the poor, from an expansion of a federal jobs program to free television sets to families below the poverty line.

Here in Andhra Pradesh, one of 17 states where voting began Thursday and turnout was reported at 65 percent, several parties apparently presented would-be voters with incentives to go to the polls - cash for women, half-liter bottles of liquor for men. The state's chief electoral officer, I.V. Subba Rao, said an estimated $5 million in cash had been seized in recent weeks, allegedly meant to be handed out to voters. Some of it was found stashed inside car tires.

Here, voters concerns ranged from the parochial to the philosophical. In a working class enclave called V.V. Girinagar, a woman named Vijaylakshmi, 33, said she would reward the B.J.P. because its local legislator had funded brick lanes in the neighborhood. P. Kishtaiah, 52, said every politician at election-time promises to legalize his illegally built slum, but that no one has so far kept their word.

Nearby, in a middle class precinct, Uma Shekar, 40, who works at a software consulting firm, said he was fed up with corruption. He said his family had traditionally voted for Congress, but frustrated, had turned to other parties in recent years as well. "Nothing is working," he rued.