NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) on Friday announced the poll schedule for Himachal Pradesh. However, it did not declare the schedule for Gujarat, which has generally gone to election along with Himachal Pradesh.
It was expected that the EC would announce the poll schedule for both Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. But chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, in a press conference, declared the dates only for the hill state of Himachal Pradesh.
According to the announcement, polling will take place for the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly in a single phase on November 12 and counting of votes will be undertaken on December 8.
Asked the reason behind not announcing the Gujarat poll schedule, Kumar said various factors were considered, including convention, gap in the qualifying dates and weather.
He said, in Himachal Pradesh, factors like weather are important, especially in the upper reaches where snowing takes place. “The commission goes by convention in elections. We followed the last convention," he added.
The CEC was referring to the poll schedules of the two states in 2017. Though elections for both states were held around the same time and the counting of votes took place on the same date, the EC had made the announcement of the poll schedule on two different dates.
In 2017, the commission held a press conference on October 12 to announce the election schedule of Himachal Pradesh. Voting took place in a single phase on November 9 and counting of votes took place on December 18.
For the 182-member Gujarat assembly election, EC held a separate press conference on October 25, 2017 to announce the poll schedule. Voting took place in two phases on December 9 and December 14 while counting of votes were undertaken along with that of Himachal Pradesh on December 18.
According to this logic and the statement about “convention” given by the CEC, the dates of Gujarat election could be announced within a fortnight. Moreover, the election could be held in two phases and the counting of votes could be held on December 8.
However, the argument about convention does not hold ground this year. Last time, the election dates for Gujarat were announced 13 days after the declaration of the poll schedule for Himachal Pradesh. The EC, led by then CEC Achal Kumar Joti, had then attributed the gap to the Gujarat floods.
Collectors of as many as 13 districts were busy in relief and rehabilitation exercises in the wake of the flood. They would have had to shift to making poll-related arrangements had the election schedule been announced. In the process, relief and rehabilitation works would have got hampered.
However, there is no flood in Gujarat this year and not holding the election along with Himachal Pradesh according to “convention” is not convincing.
Secondly, if the EC holds the Gujarat election next year, it should have held counting of votes in Himachal for a maximum of four days after voting. But the process has stretched too far and there is a gap of 25 days between voting and counting.
EC move criticised
The EC move to declare the poll dates of only Himachal Pradesh has met with criticism.
Talking to TOI, former CEC OP Rawat, who was an election commissioner when the 2017 Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assembly elections were held, said, “The 25-day gap appears to be unexplainable. If you do not have to accommodate the Gujarat assembly election in it, then this gap of 25 days is beyond comprehension.”
Talking about the separation of Himachal and Gujarat elections, Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet, "Obviously this has been done to give more time to the PM to make some mega promises & carry out more inaugurations. Not at all surprising."
Congress spokesperson and chairperson of party's social media and digital platforms Supriya Shrinate said in a tweet in Hindi, "Gujarat election dates to be announced after Diwali. Till then, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi can campaign wholeheartedly at the government's expense. You can distribute revadis as well!"
Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram tagged the EC and said, "Why this long gap between polling & counting? Guess Gujarat will be snuck. But why not announce it together? @ECISVEEP"
EC defends its action
Talking to media persons, Kumar said announcement of multiple state polls leads to a longer wait in declaration of results for some. “We do not want the entire election process to continue for a very long period," he said and added that the model code of conduct period had been reduced to 57 days.
Hinting that the Gujarat election may even be held in January-February 2023, Kumar said there was a gap of 40 days between the end of the assemblies of the two states. According to rules, it should be at least 30 days so that one result did not impact the other, he said.
The term of the Gujarat assembly ends on February 18, 2023, while the term of the Himachal assembly will end on January 8, 2023.
Meanwhile, the EC had announced elections to both the states on the same day in 2012. In Himachal Pradesh, election was held in one phase on November 4. The election in Gujarat was held in two phases, on December 13 and December 17. The results for both states were announced on December 20.
However, instead of returning and following the precedent of 2012, the EC this year has chosen to follow the convention of 2017 but seems to have only created doubts in the process.
