Campaign for 21 October District/Taluka Panchayat and Nagarpalika polls is going on across the state.

During the campaign four different announcements attract our attention. Both are interesting.

The first one comes from Kutch district BJP President and MLA Jayantibhai Bhanushali.

Shri Bhanushali has announced that the village that would give zero vote to Congress party will be awarded Rs 10 lakh grant from MLA fund. Not only this, but the voters of that village will be felicitated publicly.

Bhanushali has made this announcement for his Abadasa area, where Muslim votes are in good number.

The second announcement comes from BJP’s Radhanpur MLA Shankarbhai Chaudhary, who is also a member of party’s core committee.

Chaudhary in Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign rally at Mahesana announced publicly that the BJP has taken a decision not to give any position for five years to those winning candidates who win by over 300 votes margin compare to other party candidates in his/her panel.

It should be mentioned that in Nagarpalika polls, three candidates of party contest in one ward in panel. A candidate from influential community or area may possibly try to woo the voters for his individual gain. This would be resulting in gain of more personal votes, but one the whole, the other members of his panel from his own party could be in danger. In Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation polls, BJP’s 42 panels witnessed difference of votes between two winning candidates. In some wards, the difference gap was as wide as two to three thousand votes. According to Shankar Chaudhary’s announcement, such winners would not get chance to hold any position for five years, if party comes to power. So every BJP candidate has to secure votes for his panel, and no individual vote cornering is allowed.

The third significant announcement during the campaign comes from the state election commission of Gujarat. The officials of state election commission during the training session of Electronic voting machines, are now saying that if some voter pushes a blue button to vote particular candidate, and after a moment if he feels, that his decision was not correct, he can push that blue button again, and his vote to that candidate would be canceled. Then the voter can push blue button again to vote his/her desired candidate.

The fourth interesting announcement is made by Vadodara district Congress. The party unit has mentioned an agenda of demanding separate Chhota Udepur district in its manifesto. Chhota Udepur, a tribal area dominated by Rathwa and Koli tribes, is located on Mahrashtra, Madhya Pradesh and eastern Gujarat border. After movements for separate district in bordering Madhya Pradesh got success, a section of people in tribal Chhota Udepur might be feeling necessity of having a small district of their own, and district headquarter in their area. Presently the people of this area have to go to Vadodara for governmental works.