Himachal Pradesh poll on Nov 9; Guj dates not fixed, but will be over by Dec 18

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) announced on Thursday that polling will be held in Himachal Pradesh on November 9, but did not reveal the dates for Gujarat beyond saying that the election process in the state would be complete by December 18.

While the EC said the delay in announcing the Gujarat dates was to ensure that the state didn't have an unusually long period under the model code of conduct, Congress alleged "the reason is that the PM is visiting Gujarat next week as a false Santa Claus to announce sops and 'jumlas' that he did not implement for 22 years".

The date for the Himachal election was influenced by weather conditions as winter sets in early in the hill state while the Gujarat poll could not be advanced beyond a point as the assembly term runs till January 22. The voters and political parties in HP will have to wait around 40 days after polling till results are announced on December 18. The term of the state assembly is till January 7, but weather was a key factor in deciding the polling date.

tHE Congress accused the Centre of "putting pressure" on the Election Commission (EC) to delay announcement of the Gujarat assembly poll dates. Congress's Randeep Surjewala said, "Did the EC not announce the Gujarat election because PM Narendra Modi is going there on the 16th and if he went after the imposition of the code of conduct he would have gone there as just a campaigner and would not have been able to make his populist announcements. Can EC yield to such pressure? Does it set the right precedent? The EC needs to respond and clarify."

A former chief election commissioner said the polls in Gujarat would have to be announced in a week or two keeping in mind the 46-day window between announcement of polls and first phase.

"The delayed announcement has given the ruling party an undue advantage of announcing sops over the next few days," he added. The CEC, A K Joti, said that as per an agreement reached between the law ministry and EC in 2001 there should not be a gap of more than 21 days between announcement of polls and issue of notification.

Announcing Gujarat dates now would mean an unusually long period when the model code of conduct would be in force. As per convention, the commission simultaneously announces assembly polls in states where there isn't much of a gap between the expiry of terms of the assemblies.

Joti said conventionally, the gap between announcement and actual poll should not exceed 46 days — a mandatory 25-day period between notification and polling plus a maximum 'flexible' component of 21 days between announcement and notification. This would ensure that normal decisionmaking of the government does not suffer. But this has been breached in the past. There was a 71-day gap between simultaneous announcement of polls in Himachal and Gujarat (October 3) and the first phase of polling in Gujarat (December 13) in 2012. Similarly, in 2007, this gap was 60 days for Gujarat. In the current case, Joti revealed the Gujarat chief secretary had written to EC seeking delayed enforcement of model code in view of ongoing flood relief work in the state.