Surat, December 10
Elections to the Gujarat Assembly will begin tomorrow and polling will be held in 87 of the 182 seats. The polling to the remaining seats will be held on Sunday next.

Security is tight across Gujarat with several contingents of para-military forces in place till the new government takes over around Christmas Day.

In the first phase, the number of eligible voters is around 17,877,771 comprising 9,314,640 males and 8,563,131 females. There are 669 candidates, including 53 women, in the fray.

The campaigning has so far centred around the personality of Chief Minister Narendra Modi with all other issues pushed to the background. Modi is fighting the polls virtually on his own with the Congress and sections of his own Sangh Parivar aligning against him.

The Congress has fielded eight outgoing MLAs from the BJP in addition to several prominent rebels from the saffron party. In a bid to prevent the anti-Modi votes from splitting, the Congress has tied up with smaller parties like the NCP, Ramvilas Paswan’s LJP and other outfits.

Only the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party are contesting on their own, though their influence is negligible.