Counting for the legislative assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh begins tomorrow morning at all district headquarters.
The Himachal poll was on December 4 but the counting had to wait till Gujarat finished its two-stage round, over the past week. Both states had a high turnout; Himachal invariably does and it was 74.6 per cent this time, while Gujarat saw a record turnout of 71.6 per cent.
In both states, incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party governments are trying to return to power, with the main opposition party the same in both cases, the Congress. However, the hill state has not seen an incumbent government, of either BJP or Congress, return to power since 1984; the parties have been alternating winners at each poll since. On the other hand, the previous occasion the Congress party won a Gujarat election was in 1985 (though it did get into power, nevertheless, between 1991 and 1995).
This time, too,opinion polls are predicting a return of the usual in both states, though this remains to be seen tomorrow. They predict a loss for the BJP administration of Prem Kumar Dhumal in Shimla; the Congress campaign is being led by veteran ex-CM Virbhadra Singh, till lately in the Union cabinet. In Gujarat, national interest in the poll is far wider, with Chief Minister Narendra Modi tipped by most pollsters as set to get re-elected for a record third tenure. Such a win, especially if a resounding one, is expected to give him a big push to possible leading the BJP in the national elections of 2014.
There are 68 seats in the Himachal assembly and 182 in the Gujarat one. The results of both should be out fairly early in the day, thanks to the electronic tally.
National leaders from both parties came to campaign in the two states, giving Gujarat relatively more attention, since far more was considered at stake in the poll there. However, a win in Himachal would be a morale-booster for the Congress, the ruling party at the Centre, given its lack of an electoral victory for quite a while, and the immense political pressure it has been subject to in Delhi over the past year. As a corollary,a loss in both would a big setback.
The highlight of the Gujarat poll was the emergence of a ‘third front’ in the state, where polls have traditionally been a contest between only the Congress and BJP. The Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP), headed by former BJP veteran and Modi’s predecessor as chief minister, Keshubhai Patel, is contesting from a little over 170 seats, in its first election. Patel, in his 80s, is himself contesting an election after nearly a decade.
The elections in both states were largely peaceful, barring one incident of firing by the security guard of a BJP MLA in Gujarat, with nine police personnel suspended for negligence.