The dates for the Assembly elections in the states this year will be announced today, following which the model code of conduct will be imposed.
The Election Commission (EC) is likely to announce on Saturday the dates for the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra today.
Haryana is currently led by Chief Minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar, whose term of the current BJP-led state assembly will expire on November 2, 2019. There are 90 seats in the Haryana Legislative Assembly, of which a party would need to win 45 for a majority.
The last general election to elect members of the assembly was held on October 15, 2014, where the BJP won 47 seats to claim a majority in the Assembly, forming the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), led by ex-Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala had come second, winning 19 seats, while the Congress, led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, trailed behind with 15 seats.
Four major parties had contested the election - the Indian National Congress (INC), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). Others included the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI), and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and others.
The alliances and parties will contend once again this time, with INLD being led by Om Prakash's son Abhay Singh Chautala.
According to statistics, Haryana has a population of 2.53 crore, of which 1.34 crore are male and 1.18 crore are female, according to the 2011 Census. However, an April 23 Photo Electoral Roll shows that the state has a total of 1.8 crore voters, of which 1.7 crores are male and only 1 lakh are female, which paints a clear picture of the wide disparity among electors.
In Maharashtra, the current BJP-led government is led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. He is the BJP's CM candidate again and had earlier organised a Maha Janadesh Yatra to cover about 160 of the total 288 assembly constituencies. On the other hand, BJP's ally Shiv Sena's youth leader and Chief Ministerial nominee Aaditya Thackeray had, too, launched a Jan Aashirwad Yatra in a bid to increase party's presence across the state.
The other parties contesting the election are the opposing Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) who had earlier announced 125-seat each contesting agreement. It is widely predicted that the BJP-led government will come back to power in Maharashtra. In 2014, the BJP had won 122 seats, while the Shiv Sena had claimed 63 seats to themselves. The rest went to Congress (42), NCP (41) and others (20).
It is worth noting that almost a dozen of Congress and MP legislators have already defected to the BJP and Shiv Sena this year.
BJP's Shah had earlier in the month taken a dig at the two opposition parties when he said that if the BJP opened its doors completely, no one would be left in the NCP and the Congress, except Sharad Pawar and Prithviraj Chavan respectively.
In the previous Assembly elections held in 2014, all four parties - Indian National Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, and Shiv Sena had contested separately. After the polls, BJP and Shiv Sena allied to form the government with BJP's Devendra Fadnavis as the Chief Minister.
The dates for the Assembly elections in the states this year will be announced today, following which the model code of conduct will be imposed.
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