AHMEDABAD, Dec 12: Millions voted amid high security on Thursday in Gujarat state as exit polls placed the Bharatiya Janata party ahead of its rivals.

Poll officials posted a turnout of 63 percent of the 33 million voters, up from the 59.3 percent recorded at the 1998 provincial elections.

The vote, which followed months of communal violence in which up to 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, died, was held under unprecedented security which put 170,000 armed police and troops out patrolling the streets.

Police detained some 5,000 people in the poll runup and sealed Gujarat’s borders with adjoining Indian states during the polling.

Gujarat Home Secretary K. Nityanandam said: “The elections passed off peacefully except for one incident in Jambusar and another in Kheda district.”

In Jambusar, Bharuch district, two shops were burnt and a truck destroyed when a quarrel broke out after a woman was teased by a crowd, he said. A curfew was slapped on the town.

In Kheda district, one person was stabbed but he survived the attack.

In Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main commercial city, chief election commissioner Gurucharan Singh said he was ordering a probe into allegations that names of an unspecified number of voters were missing from the rolls.

Election results will be unveiled on Sunday, but two separate exit polls put the ruling BJP ahead of its bitter political rival, the Congress party.

Zee TV said the BJP was poised to corner up to 100 of Gujarat legislature’s 181 constituencies up for grabs.

The Congress party could win in 70 constituencies, an exit poll by the Talim Research Foundation said.

Independent candidates and smaller parties were expected to pick up a total of 11 seats..

The regional chapter of the BJP, headed by hawkish chief minister Narendra Modi, is roundly blamed for the bloodbath in Gujarat, one of India’s most prosperous states which accounts for the wealthiest sections of the Indian diaspora.— AFP