New Delhi:
The Election Commission will announce the poll dates for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh today. The elections are likely to be held in November-December after giving due consideration to the festivals of Navratras and Diwali, sources said. The 2007 elections in both states were two-phased.
Both the states are crucial for the two national parties, the Congress and the BJP. They are BJP-ruled as of now. For the Congress, these elections will also be the first real test of the reforms agenda that the government has restarted.
In Gujarat, where Congress president Sonia Gandhi kicked off her party's campaign with a rally in Rajkot today, chief minister Narendra Modi is looking at a consecutive third term. The BJP under Mr Modi won in 2002 after the Gujarat riots and stayed in power in 2007 as well. The party has 117 of the 182 seats in the Assembly. The Congress has 59, a number the party is desperate to increase and will be hoping that anti-incumbency and some strategic allies like Keshubhai Patel, who quit the BJP a few weeks ago to form his own party.
In Himachal too, the Congress is looking to make a comeback after it lost the state in 2007. The BJP has a strong 41 seat presence in the 68-member Assembly. But it is facing internal issues over seat distribution and candidates this time. The Congress has just 19 and its fight too is handicapped with in-fighting and a lack of a clear chief ministerial candidate due to this.
A new challenge in Himachal has also been launched by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which scored a historic win in the Shimla municipal election. The party is seeing this as an opportunity to spread itself in the state.
Interestingly, CPM's biggest rival, the Trinamool Congress has also said that it will fight in all 68 seats in Himachal. It is not yet clear if Arvind Kejriwal's newly-launched political party will wet its toes or not.
In July, Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath and Election Commissioner HS Brahma visited Ahmedabad and Shimla to meet all political parties in both the states. The term of Gujarat assembly expires on January 17, 2013 and a new House has to be constituted before then. The term of the Himachal Pradesh assembly expires on January 10 next year.