The Election Commission’s decision to withhold a firm announcement on the Gujarat Assembly elections while fixing the date for Himachal Pradesh is, to say the least, curious. What made it more intriguing is the HP announcement came just days after the EC had declared its readiness to hold simultaneous polls to Parliament as well as all the Assemblies from next year onwards. In view of such a statement, the EC was hard pressed to explain why it couldn’t hold the HP and Gujarat Assembly elections around the same dates. A lamer excuse there could not be than Gujarat needing time to assuage the July floods situation. An invisible hand is to be seen in this jockeying for dates to separate elections to the two states which have, for nearly a quarter of a century, gone to polls nearly simultaneously as the five-year life of their Assemblies ends within a couple of weeks of each other.
From the dates announced for the Prime Minister’s visits to Gujarat this week it becomes clear that space has been left for the announcement of more sops directed at the state’s electorate before the model code of conduct is clamped. While there should be no harm if the EC were to take decisions on polls in consultation with the government of the day regarding security arrangements and so on, to be seen taking decisions not easily explained away like the splitting of the Gujarat-HP elections is to invite a question of bias. Considering how the latest tweaking of GST rates seemed aimed at Gujarat — how else does one explain how khakhra, the staple dried snack of the region, specially figured in items attracting less tax — it does appear that the government has been given more time to woo the Gujarat electorate before a poll date is made final. This doesn’t augur well for the autonomous status of the Election Commission of India.
