New Delhi, October 15: The Election Commission on Tuesday announced the election schedules for the assembly of two states Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Voting for 288 seats of Maharashtra will be held in one phase on November 20 and for 81 seats of Jharkhand in two phases on November 13 and 20. Apart from this, the Commission has also announced by-elections on 48 assembly and two Lok Sabha seats. The results of all will be declared on November 23.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar held a press conference with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu at Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi today. In this, he announced the election schedule.
According to the voting schedule released by the Election Commission, voting will be held in one phase for 288 assembly seats of Maharashtra. Notification will be issued on October 22 and nominations can be made till October 29. Scrutiny of nominations has been fixed on October 30 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is November 4. Elections will be held simultaneously on all seats on Wednesday, November 20.
Voting for 43 assembly seats of Jharkhand will be held in the first phase on Wednesday, November 13 and for 38 assembly seats in the second phase on Wednesday, November 20. Notification for the first phase will be issued on October 18. Nominations will be done on October 25, scrutiny of nominations on October 28 and withdrawal of nominations will be done till October 30. Notification for the second phase will be issued on October 22. Nominations will be done till October 29, scrutiny of nominations on October 30 and withdrawal of nominations on November 1.
Apart from this, the Election Commission has also announced the voting program for by-elections on 48 assembly seats of 15 states and two Lok Sabha seats of two states. According to this, voting will be held on November 13 on 47 assembly seats of 14 states and one Wayanad Lok Sabha seat of Kerala. Voting will be held on November 20 on one assembly seat of Uttarakhand and Nanded Lok Sabha seat of Maharashtra.
Out of 288 seats in Maharashtra, 234 are reserved for general, 25 for scheduled tribes and 29 for scheduled castes. Maharashtra has a total of 9.63 crore voters out of which 20.93 lakh voters will exercise their franchise for the first time. The commission has set up more than one lakh polling stations at 52,789 places for the state assembly.
Out of 81 assembly seats in Jharkhand, 44 are reserved for general, 28 for scheduled tribes and 9 for scheduled castes. There are 2.6 crore voters here out of which 66.84 lakh are young voters and 11.84 lakh voters will be able to exercise their franchise for the first time. The commission has set up 29,562 polling stations at 20281 places for them.
CEC Rajiv Kumar says that the commission has made efforts to ensure 100 percent inclusion of particularly vulnerable tribal groups in both the states of Maharashtra and Jharkhand and has got their names included in the voter list.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar referred to the apathy of voters, especially urban ones, for the Maharashtra Assembly and said a targeted campaign and effort would be made to address this and try and ensure that everyone participates in voting.
