Gujarat Assembly Elections: Full Schedule And Other Details

The Gujarat Assembly elections 2022 will be held in two phases on December 1 and December 5. Voting for 89 seats of the Assembly will take place in the first phase while for the rest 93 in phase two. The votes will be counted on December 8 along with Himachal Pradesh. The Election Commission announced the polling dates on November 3.

The Gujarat Legislative Assembly has 182 seats. A party needs to win at least 92 seats to form a government in the state.

Gujarat is a stronghold of the BJP. It is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The party has been in power in the western state for 27 years. It first came to power in 1995 by winning 121 seats. In the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections, BJP claimed 99 seats, 16 less than the seats it won in 2012. Congress, on the other hand, won 80 seats in 2017, 19 more than the 61 seats it won in the previous elections.

For this year's Gujarat elections, the BJP has dropped 38 sitting MLAs, as per its first list of candidates. The party has given tickets to several popular faces including first-timer Rivaba Jadeja, wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja. Patidar leader Hardik Patel will also be contesting the polls on a BJP ticket from the Viramgam constituency. He formally joined BJP earlier this year after resigning from Congress in May. There are seven candidates in BJP's first list who fought on a Congress ticket last time.

The ruling party has fielded incumbent Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel from Ghatlodia.

Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also contesting all 182 seats in the elections. AAP has named former TV anchor and journalist Isudan Gadhvi as its chief ministerial candidate for the Gujarat polls.