NEW DELHI, Nov 29: The Delhi assembly went to polls on Saturday, reflecting India’s resilience over a devastating terror attack on Mumbai but the keen contest between the ruling Congress party and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also masked the country’s deepening social faultiness.

“The government has totally failed to combat terrorism which has made the country a soft target,” said the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra. He is hoping to dislodge two-term Congress chief minister Sheila Dixit.

“Terrorists can strike at will at any place. People are angry with the government,” Mr Malhotra declared.

Justifying the BJP’s advertisement in Saturday’s papers that bears a veiled reference to the Mumbai terror strikes, he said: “There is nothing wrong in that.”

Delhi was one of three states the BJP lost to the Congress in 1998, virtually critiquing the nuclear tests that year by prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Hindu revivalist leadership.

Pollsters say the dividends this time round would be roughly equal, with the BJP gaining from the Mumbai attacks.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said here on Friday that India’s domestic politics were mounting pressure on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s administration to blame Pakistan for the attacks.

Eventually neither the prime minister nor the leader of the opposition found time to meet Mr Qureshi and he had to convey his good wishes to both through the media.

The BJP accuses the government of being soft on terrorism to appease Muslim voters. But Muslims vote for practically every party with only a very few choosing the Congress.

Two other polls in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are expected to be impacted by the Mumbai attacks.

More than five million people voted in the Delhi elections. At least 51 per cent of the 10.5 million electorate exercised their franchise in nine hours of balloting till 5pm, the Election Commission said.

There were stray incidents of violence in an otherwise peaceful affair.

There were a total of 863 candidates in the fray in 69 constituencies. Voting in the Rajinder Nagar seat was postponed following the death of the BJP candidate, apparently due to suicide.

The contest for Delhi is part of the assembly elections whose outcome is expected to have a bearing on the Lok Sabha elections due early next year. Soaring food prices were a major campaign issue.