The Gujarat Assembly polls will be held in two phases — on December 1 and 5 — and the counting of votes will take place on December 8 along with that of Himachal Pradesh polls.
The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday finally announced the schedule for the polls after its neutrality was repeatedly questioned by the Opposition parties for not announcing the Gujarat dates when the EC declared the schedules for the Himachal Pradesh polls three weeks ago.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said voting for 89 seats will be held on December 1 and the balance 93 seats on December 5. “The counting will be held on December 8 along with Himachal Pradesh. There are over 4.9 crore electors eligible to vote this year. There will be more than 51,000 polling stations set up, including more than 34,000 in rural areas,” Kumar added. The term of the 182-member Gujarat Assembly ends on February 18, 2023.
The Congress sought explanation from the poll body as to why the poll schedule for Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat on separate dates even though counting of votes would be held on the same day.
Congress’s Gujarat in-charge Raghu Sharma alleged that the BJP got time to hold several rallies on official expense and misused public resources to the hilt in Gujarat.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, he said, “Want to thank the Election Commission for announcing Gujarat polls finally despite the BJP-led Government’s pressure.” “The EC should give an explanation as a constitutional body that while counting of votes for elections in both States will be on the same day, why elections were announced on different dates,” Sharma said.
But BJP president J P Nadda also welcomed the announcement of the Gujarat Assembly polls and claimed that his party will again form a “double engine” Government in the State with a big majority under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
At the press conference, CEC Kumar brushed aside Opposition criticism of bias in delaying the poll announcement for Gujarat, contending that the Commission had to balance many things including weather, last date of the term of the Assembly and the number of days the model code of conduct should be in force.
“There is a tradition of counting the results together, there is weather and there is a difference between the last days when the Assemblies of both the States will expire and also a difference between the date of the model code of conduct. Still we announced the election dates 110 days ahead of the expiry of the Gujarat Assembly. And there will be a 72 days’ gap between the counting of the result and the expiry of the Assembly in Gujarat. We are quite in advance,” Kumar said.
On the question of fairness arising out of this alleged delay, brought by the Opposition, Kumar said action and outcome speak louder than words. “If we say that our results are not correct, then it will be an insult to the people of this democracy. We have to balance lots of thing before the announcement of dates. Several factors, including availability of forces, whether conditions among several other factors must be considered before poll dates are announced,” he said.
“Many parties write long letters to us complaining about the EVM machines. And then their candidates win, those complaints stop. And the results get accepted,” he added. He indicated that the elections could have been announced a couple of days earlier, but for the tragedy that took place in the State.
As soon as the poll body on Thursday morning said that the Gujarat election schedule to be announced today, the Congress tweeted, “The Election Commission of India is an autonomous body. It holds free and fair elections.” The grand old party’s tweet came after the ECI declared that it will announce the schedule for upcoming Gujarat polls.
As per the schedule, the notification for the Assembly elections will be issued on November 5 and November 10 for the first and the second phases respectively. The last date for filing of nominations will be November 14 and November 17 for the first and second phase respectively. The nomination papers will be scrutinised on November 15 and November 18. The last date for withdrawal of nominations for the first phase is November 17 and for the second phase it is November 21. The CEC, before announcing the schedule, expressed condolences to the victims of the Morbi bridge tragedy.
The high-stakes elections will see a three-cornered contest between the BJP, the Congress and the new entrant AAP. The BJP saw its number of seats drop to its lowest tally since 1995 last time (2017), winning 99 of 182 seats. The Congress got 77 seats. However, the BJP, which has been in power in Gujarat for 27 years, still got nearly 50 per cent of the votes (getting 49.05 per cent), while the Congress ended with 41.44 per cent of the votes.
The AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal has sought to make inroads in the BJP bastion by announcing “guarantees” like free electricity, free education, and a monthly stipend to unemployed youths and women above 18 if it is voted to power. The AAP took out tricolour marches in 30 of Gujarat’s 33 districts in two days after sweeping Punjab State Assembly elections in March. Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann have frequently visited Gujarat since, making announcements and holding several rallies in Saurashtra, Surat, and tribal regions that have over 90 assembly seats.
To ensure maximum voter participation in the Gujarat elections, the Election Commission has made a provision for over 200 electors of an island off the State’s coast to cast their vote in a shipping container, saving them a long journey to the nearest polling station in Bharuch district, Gujarat. Similarly, a polling station will be set up for Baharatdas Darshandas at Banej, in Gir forest and a team will travel by boat to reach the polling station in Shiyabet on the island as it has no alternative connectivity to the mainland.
The CEC said that the shipping container as a makeshift polling station will be set up at Aliabet in the Vagra Assembly constituency of the district. The polling station will have basic facilities such as drinking water.
There was no Government or semi-Government facility available in the village which apparently made it difficult to set up a polling centre. “Our teams trek difficult terrains and forests and travel by boat to reach polling stations set up in remote areas to ensure that no voter is left behind,” Kumar said. Gujarat will go to polls in two phases on December 1 and 5 with the counting of votes on December 8 along with that of Himachal Pradesh.
For Shiyalbet, a team will travel by boat to reach the polling station on the island as it has no alternative connectivity to the mainland. The nearest town is Jafrabad, around 15 kilometres away from the island, which has 4,757 voters.
In the Gir forest, a polling station will be set up for Baharatdas Darshandas at Banej. The polling station was set up for the lone voter there in the past too. Three polling stations are also being set up by Election Commission (EC) in Madhupur Jambur in Gir Somnath district for the Siddis.
Siddis, the EC said, are descendants of East African people who came to India during the 14th and 17th centuries and now reside here. Kumar said they are our proud voters. Out of 3,481 voters there, 90 per cent are from the Siddhi community. In a first, special observers are being deployed for accessibility and inclusion in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
