The small hilly state of Himachal Pradesh is going for Assembly elections early next year, but unlike in the past, this time the election in the state have assumed significance as the Congress and the BJP would be fighting it out here along with Gujarat.
Both the parties are not taking any chances this time and are trying to keep ahead of the other. Breaking with the earlier ways of announcing the official candidates just a few days ahead of the filing of the nomination papers, the parties are announcing the candidates way in advance.
Already, the BJP has announced its candidates on 45 seats out of the total 68 seats and the Congress is ready with its first list of 30 candidates, which it is going to announce any day now.
The new approach of announcing candidates well in advance has been followed after seeing the Punjab elections early this year.
In Punjab, the Akalis announced the candidates well in advance and the Congress left it too late, which gave an advantage to the Akali candidates in campaigning, as per political observers. Now the parties in Himachal Pradesh are trying to emulate the Akali practice of announcing candidates in advance.
In the past, Himachal Pradesh has seen political parties leaving the ticket allocation to the very last week and wait for other parties to declare the candidates so that they can decide about it later.
However, this time, parties are doing the reverse to seize the initiative in an election which both parties think they can win.
The BJP was first to declare its list as it has decided on most of the seats, including some of controversial ones. Chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and senior BJP vice-president Shanta Kumar have reached a consensus about most of the seats barring a couple.
The Congress is also not leaving anything to chance and has already decided its candidate on 30 seats, which would be released this week, party sources say. The party has also decided to field 20 sitting MLAs out of total 23 in the state.
This is the first time the state is going for elections after delimitation and the parties want to give ample time to the candidates keeping in view the tough terrain of the state.