Most probably the election dates for Gujarat will announce today by Election Commission of India. The decision is made in the backdrop of wide protest over delaying the announcement of election dates in the state. It comes 13 days after the Himachal Pradesh’s election announcement. The opposition Congress party accused EC of giving the ruling BJP a grace period to make last-minute announcements and launch massive projects to influence voters, a charge the powerful poll body had rebutted. The Chief Election Commissioner AK Joti has denied the charges and explained the commission’s decision to a request from the Gujarat government to delay the announcement to enable the administration to wrap up relief and rehabilitation work to help flood victims in the state.
The poll panel’s decision to announce the November 9 elections for the 66-seat Himachal Pradesh assembly but holding off the start date for the elections in Gujarat was a deviation from the decades-old convention of announcing elections for the two states together. The poll body had, however, indicated that the end date for the election process in both states was December 18, the date of counting. The election to the 182-seat assembly is a battle of prestige for the BJP; the home state of the party’s two biggest leaders, PM Modi and party president Amit Shah who has set a target of 150 seats, up from the 115 seats won in 2012. The Congress is also trying to reach arrangements with emerging community leaders angry with the BJP such as Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and Hardik Patel, the face of the Patidar, or Patel agitation for quotas in government jobs.
The Elections of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat would be the first to be held with voting machines attached to a device voter-verifiable paper audit trail, which produces a paper receipt of the voter’s choice for proof. Nearly 75,000 machines have been sourced for Gujarat alone.
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