The Election Commission has announced the dates for the elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Both the states will go to the polling booths in two phases, said ChiefElection Commissioner N Gopala Swamy at a press conference here on Wednesday.

According to the schedule, the election for the total 182 seats in the Gujarat Assembly will be held on December 11 (87 seats) and 16 (95 seats). Counting for both the phases is on December 26. The terms of the Assemblies of both the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh were due to expire on December 26 and March 9, 2008 respectively.

In Himachal Pradesh, election for three constituencies is on November 14. “The passes in this area are officially closed on 15th November in view of winter and snowfall,” the commission reasoned for an early date in these constituencies. The second phase in the state is on December 19, in which elections would be held for the remaining 65 Assembly constituencies. The results will be announced on December 28.

In the second election after the 2001 riots, apparently the Election Commission wanted to take any risk and decided to hold a two-phase poll. The Congress and the BJP, the chief contestants in the state, had earlier favoured a single-phase election.

The chief election commissioner also said that it will be ensured that all those voters who still live in the relief camps will be provided with voter identity cards.

??There cards will tell them where they will vote,?? he said when asked where these voters will vote as there are fears that they will not be able to return to their home constituencies.

With the poll panel announcing the election, both the Congress and BJP camps have formalised the poll preparations. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had already made it clear that issues like Setu Samudram controversy will have an impact in the election. He is also claiming that the development programmes he has initiated in the state in the last several years will bring him more votes.

Political observers say that though the farmers and the middle-level business class are against the Modi regime, he still enjoys massive support from educated youth, professionals, NRIs and big business brands in the state.

Giving rest to the communal agenda, the Modi was trying to project him as an investment-friendly chief minister in the last couple of years.

On the other side, the Congress is banking on the divisionism within the BJP. Senior BJP leaders and former chief ministers Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta have been attacking Modi openly for his “dictatorial” policies. The Congress is trying its level best to use this opportunity. It is also trying to use the most of the discontent within the farmers and the small and medium business class against Modi.

However, issues like the plight of Muslims in the state can hardly come as a topic that decides the poll fortunes. As the society is already divided on communal lines, the Congress is likely to use its Soft Hindutva cards in the forthcoming elections also. The BJP is also trying to capture the secular space of the state, with Mayawati launching her campaign in the state recently at Vadodara with a rally in which about a lakh of her party’s activists participated.