December date set for Gujarat election battle

Voting in two phases, all stations to have EVMs with paper trails

NEW DELHI: Gujarat will vote in two phases to pick a new assembly, the election commission said on Wednesday, setting the stage for a crucial battle that is seen as a test of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies to revive a sputtering economy.

Chief election commissioner AK Joti said all polling stations will have VVPAT machines, an anti-fraud system with a paper trail that shows the candidate and symbol a person voted for.

The contest in Gujarat, Mo di’ s home state where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power for 22 years, will be keen ly watched for signs of voter reaction to some of his radical economic policies that the opposition Congress party is trying to leverage to regain political ground.

The BJP has also been facing angry protests by the state’ s powerful Pat id ar community that has been demanding a quota in education and government jobs.

Not that any of this necessarily up sets th eB J P’ s expected victory in its citadel. The party has been extending its reach across the country, emboldened by a string of state poll victories and consist- ently high public approval for Modi. But with the economy still reeling from last year’s cash clampdown and the bumpy rollout of the Goods and Services Tax, the party appears to have lost, for the first time since its resounding national victory in 2014, some of its confidence.

“It’ s not going to be easy for the BJP. The job market has all but collapsed. Scheduled cast es have started organising themselves …,” said Sebastian Morris, professor of economics at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

For the Congress, the stakes are high too, given that a good showing could help the party recover from recent election def eats. Over the past months, its vice president Rahul Gandhi, has displayed a new confidence in his public speeches as well as social media campaigns that have triggered some unease in the BJP.