Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu during a press conference on Tuesday
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: In electoral battles that will once again see the BJP and the Opposition I.N.D.I.A locking horns for supremacy, Maharashtra will go to polls on November 20 while Jharkhand will see Assembly elections in two phases on November 13 and 20.
Bypolls to 47 Assembly, including three seats in Karnataka, and one Lok Sabha seat – Wayanad – will be held on November 13 while bypoll to one each Assembly and one Lok Sabha seat – Nanded – will be held on November 20.
The counting of votes for Assembly and bypolls will be held on November 23.
Announcing the election schedule, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar specially urged urban voters to come out and vote, saying if voters in Bastar, Kashmir and Gadchiroli can vote, why cannot those in urban areas like Colaba in Maharashtra vote. He said elections were being held in both the states on Wednesdays to address the problem of urban apathy.
Asked about why elections were not held in a single phase in Jharkhand which is smaller than Maharashtra, Kumar said the polls were held in five phases in 2019 but this time, they are holding it in two phases. He said one should factor in concerns like naxal-infested areas and related issues in Jharkhand while deciding on the poll schedule.
While voting for 288 seats in Maharashtra will be finished in a single day, voters in Jharkhand will exercise their franchise to choose 81 MLAs in two days.
There are 9.63 crore voters, including 4.66 crore women, in Maharashtra, while in Jharkhand, there are 2.6 crore voters, which includes 1.29 crore women.
Kumar also said bypolls to Basirhat Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal and Milkipur Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh were not announced due to pending election petitions.
The BJP is heading to the elections with the confidence of snatching victory in Haryana where pollsters predicted a decisive Congress win while the Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT)-NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) combine ‘Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA)’ and I.N.D.I.A bloc in Jharkhand are hoping to shrug off Congress’ demoralising defeat in the north Indian state.
The BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP ‘Mahayuti’ government led by Eknath Shinde in Maharashtra is hoping to overcome anti-incumbency though it is battered by differences among the allies on a variety of issues and perception problem over breaking Uddhav Thackeray’s and Pawar’s parties.
The MVA or the Maharashtra version of the I.N.D.I.A bloc is riding high on its performance in Lok Sabha elections in which the BJP-led alliance witnessed a meltdown. The 2019 elections had seen high drama with BJP initially forming a government with the help of Ajit Pawar, which was short-lived, and Shiv Sena ditching the BJP to join Congress and NCP camp.
In Jharkhand, the JMM-led I.N.D.I.A bloc is hoping to return to power even as the BJP has made early moves in the state striking a seat deal with NDA allies. The BJP is hoping to ride on a high-octane Hindutva pitch, raising the bogey of Bangladeshi infiltration and a National Registry of Citizens.