20 days after the announcement of Himachal Pradesh polls, the Election Commission has announced the dates for the Gujarat elections. As before, Gujarat will vote in two phases. The first round of voting is on December 1. The second phase of voting will be held on December 5. Counting of votes will be on December 8. Counting of votes in Himachal Pradesh is also scheduled on that day. The entire voting process will be completed by December 10. The commission announced the Himachal Pradesh polls on October 14. It was expected that the date of Gujarat polls would also be announced on the same day. But the commission did not walk that way and announced only the polling date of Himachal Pradesh that day. On November 12, one-phase polling will be held in 68 constituencies of Himachal Pradesh. The election results of this hilly state will be announced on December 8. Gujarat and Himachal polls are traditionally announced separately, but the results are announced simultaneously in both states. This time too, the commission has maintained that practice. However, the opposition claimed that the delay in the announcement of Gujarat’s polls was to give added advantage to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. As Gujarat in-charge leader of Congress Raghu Sharma says, “The commission has to explain why Himachal and Gujarat polls were announced on separate days. Even after the announcement of Himachal polls, the BJP has got an opportunity to campaign in Gujarat using government money and other resources.” The BJP has been in power for the past 27 years in the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly. Currently BJP has 111 MLAs in that state. Opposition Congress has 62 MLAs. The last time voting was held in Gujarat was in 2017. The Congress had put the Seva BJP in the face of a tough challenge. In 2017, BJP won 99 seats. And Congress reached close to eighty.
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