New Delhi
The Election Commission of India on Sunday announced the dates for assembly elections in five states and one union territory. With these elections, the Model Code of Conduct has come into effect immediately.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said in a press conference that assembly elections will be held in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Puducherry. Voting will be held for a total of 824 seats across the five states, with approximately 174 million voters exercising their franchise. The election results will be declared on May 4th.
State-wise election schedule
According to the Election Commission, voting in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29.
Whereas in Tamil Nadu, voting will be held in a single phase on 23rd April.
Apart from this, voting will be held in single phase in Kerala, Assam and Puducherry on April 9.
Deletion of names from the voter list
The Election Commission reported that a large number of names were deleted in several states following the Special Revision (SIR) of voter lists. Tamil Nadu saw the highest number of deletions, with approximately 7.4 million voters.
After this, about 58 lakh names have been removed from the voter list in West Bengal, about 8 lakh in Kerala, about 2 lakh in Assam and about 77 thousand names in Puducherry.
Mamata Banerjee faces a major challenge in Bengal
Mamata Banerjee has been the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the past 14 years. If her party, the Trinamool Congress, wins this election, she will become Chief Minister for the fourth consecutive term.
The main challenge for his party in this election is believed to be from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Political situation of other states
Tamil Nadu is currently ruled by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by M.K. Stalin.
The Left Front i.e. CPI(M) led government is in power in Kerala.
The BJP government led by Himanta Biswa Sarma has been in power in Assam for the last 10 years.
Puducherry has an AINRC-BJP coalition government led by N. Rangaswamy.
New system in the voting process
The Chief Election Commissioner stated that this time, to increase transparency in the elections, 100% webcasting will be implemented at all polling stations. Furthermore, mobile phones will not be permitted inside polling stations.
He appealed to the youth and first-time voters to actively participate in this festival of democracy and exercise their vote.
