Opinion March 5, 1985, Forty Years Ago: Assembly Polls
This is the front page of The Indian Express published on March 5, 1985.
This is the front page of The Indian Express published on March 5, 1985. 
The fortunes of six chief ministers and 14 former chief ministers will be decided on March 5 in the second and final phase of polling for 1,578 Assembly seats in 10 states and the Union territory of Puducherry. Extra precautions have been taken in Bihar, where widespread poll violence left at least 29 persons dead and 200 injured.
Results On TV
Doordarshan has made special arrangements to telecast the results of the assembly elections. On March 5, the special news bulletins will be at 5.30 pm, 7.30 pm, 9 pm, 11.30 pm and 12.30 am. There will be a special transmission from the morning of March 6, beginning at 8 in the morning. News bulletins will be telecast every two hours from 8.30 am onwards.
Paying For Nothing
The Indian government has been obliged to pay the World Bank about Rs 70,000 per day as “commitment charges” for an unavailed loan of Rs 280 crore for the Indian Railways — for the modernisation of railway workshops and electrification — the agreement for which was signed in July last year, it is learnt. The charges till date amount to over Rs 1.7 crore.
Deadly Collapse
Over two dozen labourers, including a number of women and children, were feared buried alive when a 40-foot span of a bridge under construction on a busy thoroughfare collapsed in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Special army and fire brigade teams, helped by volunteers from the locality, had rescued about six persons, including the construction contractor, from the debris by late night. Except for the contractor, all of them are in bad shape.
Share
