Chandigarh, Sep 21 (TIWN) Politics in BJP-ruled Haryana is set to heat up with the Election Commission on Saturday sounding the poll bugle. The state will go to the polls in a single phase for its 90 Assembly seats on October 21. The results will be declared on October 24.

Political observers say the ruling BJP this time has an edge over its seemingly divided main rival, the Congress, which ruled the state for a decade till 2014 before losing in the last Assembly polls.  According to the election officials, everything is in place for the smooth conduct of polling in 19,442 boothsacross the state.  A total of 1.82 crore electorates, including 84 lakh women and 239 transgenders, will decide the fate of the candidates.  Political observers say this time the contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress is more or less one sided as the former won all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana earlier this year, a first in the state's electoral history.  The Congress is still dithering over its chief ministerial candidate. The main contenders are newly-appointed Leader of Opposition and two-time Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and state Congress President and former Union Minister Kumari Shelja, who is known in political circles for her proximity to the party's organisational leadership.  The BJP is also far ahead of its arch-rival as far as campaigning at the grassroots level is concerned.