E-Paper
Gujarat to vote in 2 phases on Dec 1, 5
Votes will be counted on December 8 along with those in Himachal Pradesh, where elections will be held on November 12
Gujarat will vote in two phases on December 1 and 5 to elect the 182-seat assembly, chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar announced on Thursday, starting the electoral process in the state, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power for 27 years.
Votes will be counted on December 8 along with those in Himachal Pradesh, where elections will be held on November 12, said Kumar. November 14 is the last date for filing nominations in Gujarat and November 17 is for the withdrawal of papers.
The schedule follows the pattern in 2017 when the polls in Gujarat were announced within two weeks of the announcement of the Himachal Pradesh elections.
The BJP, which has been in power in Gujarat for nearly three decades with Congress as its main rival, has pulled all stops to improve its 2017 performance when it won a simple majority with 99 seats; its lowest in nearly three decades. This time, the two-phase election will also be closely watched for the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has run a high-pitched campaign to gain a foothold in the state and turn the straight contest between the BJP and Congress into a three-cornered fight.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been criticised by opposition parties for not announcing the Gujarat polls in October when it declared the dates for the Himachal elections. It said there were still 100 days left for the term of the Gujarat assembly.
This year, the ECI simultaneously announced polls in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Goa, Punjab, and Uttarakhand. The gap between the lapsing of the Goa and Uttar Pradesh assemblies was 60 days, yet the polls were clubbed.
The Congress hit out at ECI last month alleging that it was allowing the government an unfair advantage.
Gujarat has 49 million electors across 182 constituencies, including 17 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 23 for Scheduled Tribes.
Kumar said the commission will ensure that 324,420 new voters, who turned 18 between January 1, 2022, to October 22, are able to vote. The state also has over 400,000 voters with disabilities and over 10,000 aged over 100.
The commission said 1,417 transpersons have registered as voters, twice the numbers for 2017. The option of the postal ballot will be available to people who are over 80, and those with Covid. The process will be videographed.
Over 51,000 polling stations will be set up and live webcasting of the poll process will be done across half of them.
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