- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Election Commission of India on Friday (14) announced the election schedule of the northern state of Himachal Pradesh but not that for Gujarat, the western state which is also set to go to polls around the same time.
Himachal Pradesh, which is ruled by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will go to polls on November 12 and the results will be announced on December 8.
Gujarat, the home state of prime minister Narendra Modi, is also ruled by the BJP for more than two decades now.
That the election schedule for Gujarat was not announced by the poll panel surprised many since the term of the assemblies in both states conclude within a time period of six months.
Generally, schedules for all states going to polls around the same time are announced around the same date and the results are announced on a common date.
Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar said while fielding questions from the media that no rules were violated.
“There is a gap of 40 days between the end of the assemblies of the two states. According to the rules, it should be at least 30 days so that one result doesn’t impact the other,” he said.
The term of the Gujarat assembly is set to conclude in February 2023 while that of Himachal a month before.
“There are a number of factors, like weather. We want to hold the Himachal elections before the onset of snow,” Kumar said, adding that the commission had held talks with “various stakeholders”, NDTV reported.
The model code of conduct, which came into force with the announcement of the poll schedule, will apply to Himachal Pradesh for 57 days instead of 70 — Kumar said.
There were also questions that the decision to keep almost a month’s gap between the election in Himachal Pradesh and the result was kept to fit the Gujarat election in between even though its schedule was not declared for unknown reasons.
In 2017, when the ruling BJP did less satisfactorily in Gujarat, elections were announced in the two states on two separate occasions but the results were announced on the same date, which was December 18.
In Gujarat, the BJP has been challenged by a fast-rising Aam Aadmi Party of Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, which has been campaigning aggressively in the state after winning power in the northern state of Punjab earlier this year.
Gujarat assembly has 182 members while Himachal has 68.
