Gujarat to go to polls on 9th and 14th December. Counting on 18th

Amid allegations and counter accusations on each other by the the leaders of major contending political parties in Gujrat, the Congress and BJP over delaying the poll dates of Gujarat elections, the poll dates have finally been declared today by the chief Election Commisioner in New Delhi.

The Gujarat elections will be held in two phases. The first phase would be on 9th December, Tuesday on which 89 legislative constituencies would go to poll whereas the second phase polling covering 93 constituencies would go to poll on 14th, Tuesday respectively. Around 4.30 crores voters will go to polls on both the above dates while the counting for votes for Gujarat as well as Himachal and declaration of results would materialise on 18th December.

In the meanwhile the trend of accusations and counter accusations has considerably increased after the declaration of the poll dates in Gujarat with Congress accusing the BJP of pre strategically delaying the poll dates of Gujarat as the party wanted to given the prime minister Modi enough time to declare developmental projects/ election sops for the electorates amounting to over 1600 crores or even more.

The BJP on the other hand countered the allegations as baseless saying that the Congress party and its leaders are a frustrated lot today especially after the various opinion polls declaring them as being badly defeated at the hands of BJP in these state elections. It may be recalled that the Gujarat election has assumed a special significance in view of BJP making it a huge prestige issue, particularly in view of the challenge from the popular 24 year old leader of the patidar community Hardik Patel who’s likely to bend towards Congress with another prominent leader of the Rajput, Dalit and OBC combine Alpesh Thakur already joining the Congress party componded with exposure of state BJP leadership of being involved in corrupt practices viz. making 10 lakh rupees payment as initial instalment to Narendra Patel, associate of Hardik for joining BJP out of a total deal of Rupees one crore.

Moreover, the Nehru Gandhi scion and Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi is also holding good number of public meetings denouncing demonetisation and GST as anti people, enticing large crowds. The Congress party is out of the power in the state for the last 22 years and the BJP is in power in 14 states while Congress in 4. The Gujarat election seems to be a litmus test for BJP and prime minister Modi that will pave the way for its victory in the 2019 general elections.

SUNIL NEGI