By Biswajyoti Das
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Tens of millions of Indians voted on Thursday under the shadow of violence and an economic slowdown in the second stage of a month-long general election that could throw up a weak coalition.
Hundreds of thousands of police guarded some 200 million people eligible to vote after a mostly peaceful first phase of polls last week, although there some incidents of Maoist violence.
The ruling Congress party-led coalition appears to lead against an alliance headed by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, but both may need the support of a host of smaller regional parties to win office.
Analysts say such a government is unlikely to be stable or be able to bridge a yawning fiscal deficit and push financial reforms, including slashing subsidies and privatisation at a time of a severe economic downturn.
There are also investor worries over the rise of a group of smaller parties, known as the "Third Front," who are often seen as opportunist and an unknown quantity in government.
Thursday's poll will see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cast his vote in Guwahati, the principal city of the northeastern state of Assam which was hit by a string of bomb attacks by separatists in the run up to the election.
Long queues of people stood in the rain in Guwahati waiting to cast their vote. Armed police guarded the booths.
"There is no cause for fear and I have come here to vote on my own," said Biren Barua, a mid-30s voter who waited to vote in Guwahati.
The second round of polling, the biggest of the five phases, would see India's rural heartland voting, but also the IT centre of Bangalore and some states where Maoist rebels are strong.
Maoists killed five election officials in a landmine blast in Chhattisgarh state during the last round of voting. Eleven police were also killed across the central and eastern "red belt."
The rebels blasted a railway station and chopped down trees to block roads in the eastern state of Jharkhand early on Thursday. They briefly seized a train on Wednesday in a show of strength before releasing the passengers unharmed.
Police said they were locked in two separate gunfights with Maoists near the eastern city of Jamshedpur on Thursday after the rebels attacked police and a voting station.
The staggered voting is to allow security forces to move around the country to curb any attempt to coerce an electorate more than twice the population of the United States.
To enable voting in remote villages, electronic voting machines are transported by elephants, camels and boats. At some places, polling officials have to trek for days.
The outcome of the election will be known on May 16. India's elections are notoriously hard to predict and polls have been wrong in the past. Exit polls are banned for the election.
An array of castes, religions and ethnicities comprise the 714 million eligible voters in the world's largest democratic exercise, where ancient ties still play a large role at the ballot box.
There is no single national issue in this election and the campaigning has been marked by personal attacks and rhetoric. Parties are wooing voters with populist measures such as food subsidies and a promise of better governance and security.
(Additional reporting by Reuters correspondents across India; Writing by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
