NEW DELHI, India - Elections will be held in December in a state in western India where more than 1,000 people have died in Hindu-Muslim riots this year.

The federal government has been asked to send 40,000 soldiers and paramilitary troops to Gujarat state for the Dec. 12 vote, J.M. Lyngdoh, India's chief election commissioner, told a news conference Monday.

"After Sept. 11 and the riots, the economy of the state has been affected. Lots of people have left Gujarat for that reason alone," Lyngdoh said.

The voting will be for 152 assembly seats in the state legislature. Some 32.8 million people are entitled to vote.

Religious rioting in Gujarat state began in February when a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu activists, killing 60. That attack set off a wave of reprisal killings and rioting in which Muslims were the main victims.

The government said more than 1,000 people were killed. Human rights groups put the number closer to 2,000.

The Supreme Court had earlier rejected a bid by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to hold early elections in October. The high court said the state was not prepared to hold free and fair elections until the end of the year.

The state's top elected official, Chief Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu-nationalist BJP, had resigned and dissolved the state legislature in July, paving the way for new polls during an upsurge in Hindu-nationalist sentiment. He remains in power, however, as the caretaker leader of the state.

Modi has been widely criticized for not doing more to end the Hindu-Muslim violence, and some have accused him of instigating the reprisal attacks against Muslims.