New Delhi/Mumbai: The Election Commission announced the schedule for the Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly polls. As per the latest announcement, Maharashtra Assembly will have a single-phase poll on November 20 while Jharkhand Assembly will have a two-phase poll on November 13 and 20. The counting of both states will be taken up on November 23.
The last date for filing nominations for the first phase is October 25 and the second phase October 29. The dates for scrutiny of nominations for the first and second phases are October 28 and 30 respectively. The last date for withdrawal of candidatures is October 30 and November 1 respectively.
The Gazette notifications for the two phase elections to Maharashtra and Jharkhand will be issued on October 18 and 22 respectively, the EC said.
The bypolls to 47 assembly seats in different states and the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat will be held on November 13 and the by-polls to Kedarnath assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Nanded Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra will be held on November 20.
Disclosing these details at a press conference in the national capital, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar questioned early trends shown on TV channels within 15-30 minutes of the start of vote counting in the recent Assembly elections. Responding to Congress' charges on Haryana polls, the CEC said that the panel will respond to all 20 complaints on EVMs individually, fact-by-fact.
While the term of the Maharashtra assembly ends on November 26, that of Jharkhand ends on January 5 next year.
There are about 9.63 crore eligible voters in Maharashtra in the present election. Jharkhand has a total of 2.60 crore eligible voters, of them 1.31 crore are male and 1.29 crore female voters. There are 66.84 lakh young voters.
In the 2019 Maharashtra election, BJP emerged as the single largest party with 105 MLAs followed by Shiva Sena with 56, Nationalist Congress Party with 54, Congress 44 and AIMIM two.
Presently, the Mahayuti grand alliance is running the government. In the ruling alliance, Shiv Sena (Shinde) has 40 MLAs, BJP 105 and NCP (Ajit) 41. On the other hand, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance consists of Congress with 44 MLAs, Shiv Sena (Thackeray) and NCP (Sharad Pawar) with 14 MLAs each.
By-elections will be held for 7 assembly seats in Rajasthan on 13 November. Also, by-elections are declared for 9 out of 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh with no decision taken regarding the by-election on the Milkipur seat of Ayodhya. In Milkipur seat, Baba Gorakhnath, who was an MLA from this seat, has filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court against Ayodhya MP Awadhesh Prasad.
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