Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Achal Kumar Joti announced on Tuesday said that assembly elections in Gujarat will be held in December this year. The Gujarat BJP, however, has demanded that the polls be conducted in mid-January. The last elections to the 182-member assembly were held in December 2012.

While the CEC could not confirm the dates, he said, “The term of the Gujarat assembly ends on January 22, so the election will have to be completed in December. Assembly elections will mostly be conducted in December.”

While the Election Commission is still deciding about other aspects of the polls including whether the state will see a one or two-phase election, Gujarat will, nevertheless, be among the two states where as many as 75,000 Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT) will be used for the first time with electronic voting machines as mandated by the apex court. The  VVPATs will allow voters to verify if their vote has gone to the intended candidate.

The plea for use of either ballot paper or EVMs with VVPAT for the assembly elections was filed by Gujarat Patidar leader Reshma Vithabhai Patel.