New Delhi: Along with the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission of India also announced the dates for assembly elections for the states of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
All the four states will go to polls simultaneously with the parliamentary elections in the respective states.
While elections in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim assembly will be held in a single phase on 11 April, Odisha will vote to elect its assembly in four phases — 11 April, 18 April, 23 April and 29 April.
Here is a low down on what is at stake for the different parties in these four states.
Odisha
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik will be eyeing the chief ministership for a record fifth consecutive term as he gears himself and his party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), for the assembly elections.
The term of the Odisha assembly ends on 11 June 2019.
Of the other two main opposition parties in the state — the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Congress — the BJP is desperately trying to make inroads in the state. In the 147-member Odisha assembly, the BJD currently has 117 seats followed by the Congress, which has 18 seats and BJP, which has 10 seats.
Also read: Modi’s tightrope walk in Odisha — slam state govt, but not Naveen Patnaik
Though its performance in the 2014 parliamentary elections was lacklustre, the BJP improved its number dramatically in the 2017 panchayat polls. From a dismal 36 seats that BJP won in 2012 panchayat polls, the party increased its tally to 297 out of the 853 Zilla parishad seats in 2017. BJD won the maximum number of 473 seats.
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is up for a tough fight as the states goes to poll. The term of the Andhra Pradesh assembly is ends on 1 June 2019.
Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is the largest party in the 175-seat assembly with 99 MLAs followed by YSRCP with 66 MLAs .
Naidu has already ruled out any alliance with Congress despite allying with the party at the national level. He is in the forefront of the pre-poll alliance that opposition parties are trying to stitch to take on the BJP.
The TDP was part of the NDA government at the Centre in 2014. But it left the NDA in 2018 after the latter failed to honour its commitment to grant special status to Andhra Pradesh.
Arunachal Pradesh
The term of the current legislative assembly, led by Bhartiya Janata Party’s Pema Khandu, will end on 1 June 2019. Though the BJP is part of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a coalition of six regional parties of North-East, sources said that BJP is planning to go it alone and contest all the 60 assembly seats in the small but strategically important state.
The BJP, sources said, is planning to fight the election with Khandu as its CM face. It has 48 seats in the assembly while the Meghalaya-based Nationalist People’s Party and the Congress have five seats each. The remaining two seats are with Independents.
Khandu was with the Congress earlier but soon after being anointed the chief minister in 2016, he first joined the People’s Party of Arunachal along with majority of Congress MLAs. He subsequently joined the BJP along with the MLAs.
Also read: Seven-phase 2019 Lok Sabha polls from 11 April, results out on 23 May
Sikkim
The term of the Sikkim assembly ends on 27 May 2019. Presently, of the 32 assembly seats, Pawan Kumar Chamling’s Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) has 22 seats. His party’s vote share in the 2014 assembly elections was 55 per cent.
The SDF has been in power for an uninterrupted 25 years under Chamling.
Chamling, a five-term CM, had earlier said that the SDF is planning to field new faces in 50 per cent of the seats. The SDF is also part of the BJP-led North- East Democratic Alliance.
If CM Naveen Patnaik is reelected and has about 12 – 14 MPs, he may give up his equidistant posture and join the government in Delhi. That would get him access to more resources for Orissa, stabilise his hold on power.