EC breaks silence on delay of Gujarat Assembly Election dates

The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday (November 3, 2022) announced the dates for the Assembly elections in Gujarat and said that the polls will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5 with the counting of votes on December 8 along with that of Himachal Pradesh. Addressing a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that of the total 182 assembly seats in Gujarat, voting for 89 seats will be held on December 1 and the remaining 93 seats will go to polls on December 5.

On the Opposition's criticism of bias in delaying the poll announcement for Gujarat, Kumar contended that the Commission had to balance many things including weather, the last date of the term of the assembly and the number of days the model code of conduct should be in force.The Commission, notably, had announced elections to Himachal Pradesh on October 14 but had skipped declaring the poll schedule for Gujarat."It is a combination of multiple factors and we are well within the factors of consideration, including polls in nearby states," the chief election commissioner said.He also indicated that the elections could have been announced a couple of days earlier, but was delayed due to the Morbi bridge collapse tragedy, which took at least 135 lives on Sunday. By keeping the counting date for Himachal Pradesh nearly a month after the polling, the commission had given a clear hint that votes for Gujarat would also be counted on December 8. In 2017, the polls in the two states were announced on different dates but the counting took place together on December 18