Himachal Pradesh assembly polls on Nov 9, Gujarat will be held before December 18

Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh will be held in a single phase on November 9 with the hill state set to witness an intense battle between the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP.
Making the announcement here today, the Election Commission said the results will be declared on December 18. The dates for Assembly elections in Gujarat were not announced but Chief Election Commissioner A K Joti said the polls will be held before December 18.”This is being done to ensure that the voting pattern of one state does not affect the other state…polling in Gujarat will be held before December 18 (when HP results are announced),” Joti told a press conference. The tenures of Himachal and Gujarat assemblies end on January 7, 2018 and January 22 respectively.
“The Model Code of Conduct comes into force immediately,” Joti said while announcing the poll schedule for Himachal Pradesh. The model code of conduct will be applicable for Himachal Pradesh as well as for the Union government in matters related to the state. For the first time ever, the Election Commission will set up 136 all-woman managed polling booths in Himachal Pradesh, with each constituency having two of them.
In the 68-member Assembly, the ruling Congress has 35 members while the strength of opposition BJP is 28. There are four independents while one seat is vacant. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh will fight for a seventh term. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi last week declared Virbhadra Singh as the party?s next chief ministerial face, saying he will be chief minister for the seventh time.
The BJP will be fighting out on the back of a sweeping Lok Sabha victory in 2014 in the state too and landslide wins in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls in March. Responding to queries on why elections in Gujarat were not announced simultaneously, Joti said the imposition of Model Code with immediate effect would stop all government work and there was no need to prolong it beyond the required period. The CEC said elections to the two states–HP and Gujarat– were announced separately in the past too including in 1993, 1994 and 2002.
He said besides availability of central forces and festive season, the Gujarat government had told the Commission that several relief and rehabilitation works were on in the state following the July floods. The poll process in Himachal Pradesh will start with the issue of the gazette notification on October 16 when candidates can start filing their nominations. Joti, who was flanked by Election Commissioners O P Rawat and Sunil Arora, said the last date for filing of nominations is October 23.
After scrutiny on October 24, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 26, he said. Himachal Pradesh will be the second state after Goa with 100 percent VVPAT (paper trail of votes) coverage. The paper trail machines will be deployed along with EVMs in all the 7,521 polling stations, including 42 auxiliary polling stations at remote places.
Joti said VVPAT machines from one polling booth in each of the 68 assembly constituencies will be tallied with EVM results to check the vote count. The Commission has also increased the size of the VVPAT paper trail screen, where voters can see for whom they have voted. Joti said photo electoral rolls will be used for Himachal polls and photo identity cards have been issued to all voters.
He said voter slips will be distributed to each and every voter in the state seven days before the polls along with a voter guide brouchure in the local language of Hindi. The CEC said voter assistance booth will also be set up and the size of the standardised voting compartment will also be increased from 24 inches to 30 inches, keeping in mind the introduction of paper trail machines. Each candidate contesting the poll will have to maintain a separate account of poll expenses, which have been capped at a maximum of Rs 28 lakh for Himachal Pradesh. However, the candidate will have to submit the election expenses to the returning officer within a period of 30 days after the declaration of results.