New Delhi
17 June 2005
Iranians living in India came out in their Friday best to elect a new
president. The election results, coming as they do amid US opposition to many of Iran's
policies, would determine the fate of the reforms process undertaken by successive
governments as also the course the Persian Gulf nation charts for itself in the near
future.
Ambassador of Iran SZ Yaghoubi said the presidential election will help usher
democracy in the Persian Gulf region where few countries conduct elections regularly.
"The process of democratisation in Persian Gulf region will become faster," he told this
newspaper. He also observed that India-Iran ties would grow stronger no matter who
comes to power.
A former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is one of the
candidates standing for election this time. Mr Rafsanjani held the office of president for
eight years from 1989 to 1997. The president is elected for four years and can serve up
to two consecutive terms. President Mohammad Khatami is therefore ineligible to run.
The buzz of the presidential election was to be heard in New Delhi where its
Embassy drew up elaborate plans for casting of votes. A polling station each was also
set up in the Mumbai and Hyderabad consulates and in Bangalore and Mysore. In Pune,
which is home to a majority of Iranian nationals, there were two polling stations.
About 12 thousand Iranians live in India. A third of that number are students
enrolled in Hamdard University, Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University in
Delhi and Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh. A majority of Iranian students live
in Pune. Others are merchants who live in Mumbai and southern India and trade in
commodities.
Zeinolabedin Rahmani (39) is a research scholar at Aligarh Muslim University.
He was the first to cast his vote after polling began at 9 in the morning. Rahmani, who
has been in India for over a year now, believed it was important to vote for "freedom".
His wife, who flew to Tehran earlier in the morning, would cast her vote there.
Women were not too far behind. About 20 of them had cast their votes within an
hour after polling began. Some escorted their teenaged daughters who, at 16, became
eligible to vote. Narges and Mahdieh, who voted for the first-time ever, were ecstatic.
"We want candidates to be loyal to their people and deliver on their promises," they
asserted.
India has recently inked a 22-billion-dollar deal with Iran for supply of liquefied
natural gas. A delegation led by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar
was in Tehran where the contract was signed. The two countries have also set up a joint
working group to sort out outstanding issues in the proposed 4.16-billion dollar Iran-
Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
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