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Chief Election Commissioner James M Lyngdoh said on Friday that at this stage the commission is only thinking of conducting elections in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.
He was responding to a reporter who asked when the commission proposes to hold elections in Gujarat.
"Let me tell you that at the moment I am only thinking about the polls in Jammu & Kashmir. Gujarat is not on my mind right now," Lyngdoh said.
The CEC said the team sent to Gujarat to assess the situation were still in that state and could take some more time.
Asked if he felt that elections under governor's rule would be a better idea, Lyngdoh said that was the theory of his predecessor, Dr M S Gill. "It all depends upon who the governor is," the CEC said. "If he is well selected then it is okay. But if he is not selected well and he is a party man, then the governor could be worse than the elected government."
For good measure, he quipped: "At the moment there is no governor's rule in Jammu & Kashmir."
But Election Commission sources said Lyngdoh made his comments with Gujarat in mind. Sunder Singh Bhandari, the governor in Gandhinagar, is a stanch Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man.
If the statements made by the chief election commissioner are any indication, Gujarat might go to the poll only after November, the sources added.
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