New Delhi, Jan 7 (PTI) All the 70 assembly seats in Delhi will go to polls on February 5 and the votes will be counted on February 8, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced on Tuesday.
Bypolls to two assembly constituencies — Milkipur in Uttar Pradesh and Erode in Tamil Nadu — will also be held according to the same schedule. The bypoll was necessitated following the election of Milkipur MLA Awadhesh Prasad to the Lok Sabha and the death of Erode MLA EVKS Elangovan.
The CEC announced that bypolls in two constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir — Budgam and Nagrota — will take place later due to the current snowy conditions. The by-elections in West Bengal’s Basirhat and Gujarat’s Visavadar cannot be held till election petitions are pending, he said.
The last date to file nominations is January 17 and the scrutiny of nominations will be done by January 18. Candidates will be able to withdraw their nominations till January 20, Kumar said.
“It is a single-phase election… We have deliberately kept polling on a Wednesday so more people come out to vote… like we did in Maharashtra. The entire election process will be completed by February 10,” Kumar said at a press conference.
Of the 70 seats in Delhi, 58 are general and 12 reserved.
According to the electoral roll, Delhi has 1.55 crore voters — 83.49 lakh men, 71.74 lakh women and 1,261 transgender persons.
There are 25.89 lakh young voters, 2.08 lakh first-time voters, and 830 above the age of 100, Kumar said.
More than 13,000 polling stations will be set up in Delhi, he said.
In the 2020 polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 62 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) eight while the Congress drew a blank.
Kumar also said bypolls were due in two assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir — Budgam and Nagrota.
“….because of snow conditions, we will do it later. We have time till April and we will complete those elections before that,” he said.
“There are two more parliamentary constituencies — Basirhat in West Bengal and Visavadar in Gujarat. In both the cases, there are election petitions pending and, according to rules, we cannot do by-elections till then,” he added.
Election petitions can be filed against the winning candidate in the respective state high courts within 45 days of the declaration of results. PTI NAB GJS AO RHL
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