New Delhi: The chief election commissioner of India VS Sampath has announced that the assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra would be held on October 15 and the counting of votes would take place on October 19.
In Maharashtra, 228 assembly constituencies will go to the polls while Haryana will vote for 90 seats. Last date for filing nominations will be September 29 and the last date for withdrawal of nomination will be October 1.
Major political parties have already entered into the campaign mode in these states with Prime Minister Narendra Modi going to Haryana to campaign for the BJP where it is contesting all the 90 seats having broken its long-time alliance with Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). BJP party president Amit Shah has held intensive negotiations with its ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra on seat sharing and arriving at a consensus on their chief ministerial candidate should the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance win the state election. Negotiations are still going on.
Both states are ruled by the Congress and in Maharashtra it is in alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party. Sampath put the number of voters in Haryana at 16 million and in Maharashtra at 82 million.
He promised to ensure free and fair polls apart from creating a proper atmosphere for the conduct of the elections. Sampath said the Election Commission was "watching closely" the situation in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, and the election dates in Jharkhand as well as Kashmir would be announced later.
