EC announces Assembly poll dates for 5 states

New Delhi: The dates for the Assembly elections in five states - Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Mizoram and Rajasthan - have been announced.

Announcing the dates in New Delhi on Tuesday, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said Chattisgarh will go to vote in two phases on November 14 and 20.

While in the first phase 39 Assembly seats out of the 90-member Assembly will vote, 51 seats will go to polls in the second phase to be held on November 20.

The other four states - Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Delhi and Rajasthan - will have a single-phase election. While Madhya Pradesh will vote on November 25, Mizoram and Delhi will vote on November 29.

Polling for the 200 Assembly constituencies of Rajasthan will be held on December 4 while the counting of votes in all states on will take place December 8.

Madhya Pradesh has a 230-member Assembly; Mizoram has 40 Assembly segments while there are 70 seats in Delhi Assembly.

The CEC also announced that all political events in the five poll-bound states will be video graphed and added that 650 observers will be deployed for the elections.

With the announcement of the elections dates the model code of conduct has come into effect in the five states.

The CEC also said the Commission has warned that no election related meetings could be held at places of worship nor could anyone use these places for giving sermons.

The entire election process will be completed by December 13, he added.

The elections in all the five states will be held on the basis of the electoral rolls revised with reference to January 1, 2008 as the qualifying date and prepared in accordance with constituencies newly delimited by the Delimitation Commission.

Gopalaswami said as per the final rolls, there are 1,52,07,734 electors in Chhattisgarh, 3,57,05,136 in Madhya Pradesh, 6,11,124 in Mizoram and 3,62,19,481 in Rajasthan.

The electoral rolls of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan have been already completed and published. In respect of Delhi, the electoral rolls of 24 Assembly constituencies were published on October six and the rolls of remaining 46 will be published on Wednesday.

The polls will be conducted at all polling stations using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The Assembly elections will be the first round of elections being conducted post double digit inflation and increase in terror strikes.

The Bharatiya Janata Party faces anti-incumbency in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh while Congress faces anti-incumbency in Delhi.

The Bahujan Samaj Party is likely to play a crucial in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh with the verdict in this round likely to be an indicator of the bigger picture at the time of next General Elections in 2009.

However, no decision has been taken on the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir with the EC assessing the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

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