Cong takes a dig at EC over Guj election dates

New Delhi: Taking a dig at the Election Commission over delayed announcement of poll dates of Gujarat Assembly election, the Congress on Thursday said that the EC must give an explanation to the people of the country as to why it announced the polls to Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assemblies on separate dates even though the votes for both would be counted on the same day.

Congress' Gujarat in-charge Raghu Sharma alleged that the BJP got time to hold several rallies on official expense and misused public resources to the hilt in Gujarat.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters, he said, "Want to thank the Election Commission for finally announcing Gujarat polls despite the BJP-led government's pressure."

"The Election Commission should give an explanation as a constitutional body that while counting of votes for elections in both states will be on the same day, why elections were announced on different dates," Sharma said.

He also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Morbi bridge collapse, saying that when the tragedy happened, the Congress had cancelled all political programmes but the PM "went ahead with official programmes".

Asserting that the fight in Gujarat will be between the BJP and the Congress, Sharma said that the Congress was working very hard in Gujarat and the results to the polls in the state will be "surprising".

While announcing the poll dates, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that Gujarat will go to polls in two phases on December 1 and 5, while the counting of votes will be done on December 8 along with that of Himachal Pradesh.