Campaign dust settles, state set to vote today

EC officials maintained that water and toilet will be arranged for the voters as temperatures in the state have hit 40-42 degree Celsius.

Modi is contesting from Vadodara in central Gujarat, which is a BJP bastion.

As campaign dust settles, the 4.05 crore voters in the 26 constituencies in Gujarat are all set to exercise their franchise on Wednesday. A total of 334 candidates are in the fray. Of the 45,380 polling booths, 10,775 have been declared critical. There are 43 Assembly constituencies that have been identified as sensitive from expenditure point of view. The Election Commission (EC), which conducted an intense voters awareness campaign, has ordered concerned authorities in all constituencies to make sure to arrange one male and two female in the queues so that the queue for female voters move faster. It has also made elaborate arrangements to hold “free, fair and transparent” polls.

“The Election Commission of India has made elaborate arrangements to conduct polls in free, fair and transparent manner in Gujarat,” state chief electoral officer Anita Karwal said. She requested the people to come out to vote in large numbers without any fear as every vote is valuable. The Election Commission said that more than 1 lakh police personnel and other para-military persons have been put on duty for conducting the massive exercise of polling.

EC officials maintained that water and toilet will be arranged for the voters as temperatures in the state have hit 40-42 degree Celsius. Weather forecasters have warned that the extreme heat conditions will continue for Wednesday, the voting day. Due to this, the polling time has been increased by 2 hours. It will begin from 7 am and end at 7 pm. The voter, however, will have to reach at the booth by 6 pm.

While Chief Minister Narendra Modi addressed only 11 public rallies in two rounds a couple of days before the polling date, he dominated the campaign, being the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate. What’s more, the campaigning in the entire state swung in favour of the saffron party. The Congress campaign remained limited and low-key. While AICC president Sonia Gandhi addressed two rallies, vice-president Rahul Gandhi covered three. The five rallies was the only talking point of the Congress party, which started campaigning after its top leaders in the state joined the BJP.

Ahmed Patel, political secretary of Sonia Gandhi, also spent a couple of days in his state for the campaigning for the party. Besides, no BJP candidate or local issue could affect Modi’s dominance. From political novices like actor Paresh Rawal, the BJP candidate from Ahmedabad, to party patriarch Lal Krishna Advani, who is contesting from Gandhinagar for the sixth consecutive time, all centered their campaign around Modi. On the last day of campaigning on Monday, Modi evoked Gujarati asmita to make an emotional appeal to Gujaratis by projecting himself as “the son of the soil”. An intense campaign blitzkrieg involving big hoardings, radio, TV and print advertisements were unleashed by the BJP, making voting for Modi an issue of “pride” for Gujarat.

Modi is contesting from Vadodara in central Gujarat, which is a BJP bastion. After fielding Vadodara city president Narendra Rawat through primaries, the Congress replaced him with high-profile leader Madhusudan Mistry against Modi. The Congress, through Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, built its campaign targeting Modi for “favouring” Gujarati industrialist Gautam Adani.

Gujarat will also have bypolls to the seven Assembly constituencies today, with a total of 78 candidates in the fray. The most interesting contest is in Abdasa in Kutch district, where Congress’ national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil is pitted against Chhabil Patel of the BJP, who was until recently a Congressman himself. Other constituencies witnessing bypolls are Himmatnagar (Sabarkantha district), Somnath (Gir-Somnath), Lathi (Surendranagar), Visavadar (Junagadh), Rapar (Kutch) and Mandvi (Surat).

— With PTI inputs

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