Maharashtra to go to polls on October 21

Mumbai : The Election Commission of India has announced the assembly election dates for Maharashtra and Haryana on Saturday.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora announced that the elections will take place on October 21, 2019. Counting will be on October 24. The elections for Haryana and Maharashtra assembly will be held on the same day, October 21 followed by counting on October 24.

For Maharashtra and Haryana, the notification will be issued on September 27. The last date of nominations is October 4, and the last date of withdrawing candidature is October 7.

Arora said, “About 1,80,000 EVMs would be used. Maharashtra has 8.94 crore voters. There will be special security arrangements in LWE affected areas of Gadchiroli and Gondia in Maharashtra."

The tenure of 288 Maharashtra Legislatures will end on November 9. Presently the Maharashtra house has BJP 122, Shiv Sena 63, Congress 42, NCP 41 and others 20.

In the last assembly election, the BJP emerged as the single largest party in Maharashtra with 122 seats. While the Shiv Sena managed to grab 63 seats. Both the parties fought the election separately as they could not reach a consensus on the seat sharing formula. However, after the results they joined hands.

Meanwhile, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had also contested separately due to the same reason. They managed to get 42 and 41 seats respectively.