The elections in these two states will be held in a single phase on October 21 along with bypolls for 64 assembly seats in 18 states, including Gujarat, and one Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
The Election Commission on Saturday sounded the much-awaited bugle for the assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana. The elections in these two states will be held in a single phase on October 21 along with bypolls for 64 assembly seats in 18 states, including Gujarat, and one Lok Sabha seat in Bihar. The results will be declared on October 24, said Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora.
The term of 288-member Maharashtra assembly ends on November 9 while that of the 90-member Haryana assembly expires on November 2. While Haryana is currently ruled by Manohar Lal Khattar led BJP government, Maharashtra is being ruled by BJP-Shiv Sena coalition government led by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
The bypolls include 15 seats in Karnataka that fell vacant after MLAs belonging to Congress and JDS were disqualified by the assembly speaker. In Uttar Pradesh, 11 seats fell vacant after several legislators gave up their assembly seats to fight Lok Sabha election. The Election Commission did not announce the election schedule for the 81-member Jharkhand assembly whose term expires on December 27.
The commission is expected to announce a phased election schedule for the Naxal-affected state in the next couple of weeks.
The Election Commission will soon send two special expenditure observers to Maharashtra to check election spending by the candidates that has been kept at Rs 28 lakh for each candidate, said Arora.
The CEC said that the commission has taken all steps to hold the elections in an amiable atmosphere. Even big social media entities have come up with a voluntary code of ethics.
In line with the spirit to keep the environment clean that was recently announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Arora said, "As the election campaigns have an environment cost, we have asked all political parties not to use plastic. We will reissue our appeal."
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 "Sunil Arora")
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