Millions vote in test for Modi's PM ambitions

Millions voted yesterday in India's Gujarat state where Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi is seeking a big win to spur his prime ministerial ambitions, 10 years after anti-Muslim riots on his watch.
Crowds thronged polling stations in the first of two rounds of voting in the western state, one of India's fastest developing regions that has been run since 2001 by chief minister Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Polling officials said over 10 million people out of the 38-million-strong electorate had cast their ballots in the first seven hours, amid reports that many more were still queuing up at voting centres.
Though he has never declared his ambition to be prime minister, his desire for the top spot in his party is an open secret and he is widely thought to be angling to lead the BJP into national elections due in 2014.
Modi's links to some of the worst sectarian violence in post-independence India make him a hate-figure for many Muslims and secularists.
His main rival in Gujarat is the left-leaning Congress party, which runs the federal government and is dominated by the Gandhi dynasty which has run India for most of its post-independence history.
The final phase of the balloting is scheduled for December 17, with counting to take place three days later.
On the campaign trail, Modi has targeted the corruption-plagued federal government in Delhi and the heads of the ruling Congress party, particularly the Italian-born leader Sonia Gandhi, who he portrays as out-of-touch and foreign.