Focus on India's key electoral battles

By Soutik Biswas BBC News Online correspondent in Delhi

India's general election enters the crucial second main phase of voting on Monday with most attention on the populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Congress's Sonia Gandhi - picking up support?

Uttar Pradesh is home to some 170 million people. Along with neighbouring Bihar it returns over a quarter of India's members of parliament.

More than a third of the state's 80 constituencies will go to the polls on Monday. The rest will vote on 5 and 10 May.

India's leading politicians, including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and main opposition Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi have been campaigning hard in Uttar Pradesh.

Both of them are contesting seats on the state.

Stiff competition

Divided sharply along caste lines, Uttar Pradesh holds out the prospect of a tantalising four-way contest in which two strong regional parties are expected to hold the balance.

Pre-election opinion polls showed chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party in the lead over its regional rival Bahujan Samaj Party and the main national parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.

But such polls have been notoriously unreliable in the past.

Bahujan Samajwadi Party supporters take to the streets

"The trends are unclear in Uttar Pradesh. A four-cornered contest is a psephologist's nightmare," pollster-analyst Yogendra Yadav told BBC News Online.

"One thing is clear now. The BJP is no longer running ahead now in Uttar Pradesh," says Mr Yadav.

Crucial territories

The other key battlegrounds being fought on Monday are the four states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

Television exit polls, which have a mixed track record in India, show the BJP in the lead after round one, but with Congress narrowing the gap.

Support for the Congress party is picking up, but it might be coming too late in the day

Yogendra Yadav believes that the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are the "most decisive and the most uncertain states."

"There's greater room for change (in voter behaviour) in these states. They can change," he says.

Analysts say that the Congress party seems to be picking up in many parts of the country, but it might be coming late in the day.

"The party is picking up. But it is slightly late in the day, it might not yield too many seats for the party in the end," says Yogendra Yadav.

The huge security operation has not prevented outbreaks of violence

Analysts believe that the induction of Rahul Gandhi, a fifth generation member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, in the poll fray - he is contesting from Uttar Pradesh like his mother Sonia Gandhi - will have a marginal effect on the overall fortunes of the party.

"It will have an effect on the morale of the local Congress workers, which is very important. But that is all really," says Mr Yadav.

Kashmir concerns

There are fears of possible violence in India-administered Kashmir, which is voting next Monday.

The run-up to the election for the parliamentary constituency of Srinagar - the only seat among the state's six seats going to polls in the main second phase - has been marred by attacks by suspected militants on security forces and politicians.

Despite the isolated outbreaks of violence, day one of the election was by and large peaceful.

At least 15 people were reported to have been killed by the end of polling. That contrasts with some 100 deaths throughout the whole of the 1999 elections.