Gujarat assembly polls will be held in two phases, with voting on December 1 and 5, the Election Commission announced on Thursday. The votes will be counted on December 8.
The poll body was expected to announce the dates last month, along with the poll dates for Himachal Pradesh. But the EC postponed it, citing the convention followed in 2017 when the polls in the two states were announced on different dates but the counting took place together.
The much awaited polls are seeing a three-cornered contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In the run-up to the high-stake elections, the BJP had planned five yatras as part of its voter outreach campaign. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been visiting the state regularly to review preparedness of the party's state representatives. Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting with party leaders in Gandhinagar on Thursday, ahead of the polls. Shah inaugurated the Gujarat Gaurav Yatra in Ahmedabad last month.
The BJP, which has ruled Gujarat for over 25 years, is facing stiff resistance from the AAP. The AAP also intensified its campaign with frequent visits from party chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kerjiwal and Manish Sisodia to the poll-bound state. Pitching his party as a key challenger to the BJP, Kejriwal had appealed to the state's voters to give the AAP a chance.
The Congress, too, launched five yatras across the state recently. Expressing confidence that the Congress will wrest power from BJP in Gujarat, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday stated there was a massive anti-incumbency against the state government. He added that the AAP has no support on the ground.
There are over 4.9 crore electors eligible to vote this year. Over 51,000 polling stations have been earmarked for the Gujarat assembly polls, including more than 34,000 in rural areas, CEC Rajiv Kumar said on Thursday.
The term of the 182-member state Assembly ends on February 18, 2023.