EC to announce Assembly poll dates in Maharashtra, Haryana today

Voting in Maharashtra, Haryana could be held before the Diwali festival on October 27

election commission ayush The Election Commission office in Delhi | Aayush Goel

The Election Commission is set to announce dates for the Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana by 12pm on Saturday.

The Election Commission will hold a press conference to announce the dates. The tenures of the legislatures of Maharashtra and Haryana are due to end by early November. Maharashtra has a 288-member Assembly, while Haryana has a 90-member legislature.

It had been previously expected that the elections in Jharkhand would also be held along with the polls in Maharashtra and Haryana. However, some news reports said the voting in Maharashtra and Haryana would be held before the Diwali festival on October 27, while the polls in Jharkhand would be announced on a later date.

Moreover, due to the problem of leftwing extremism, the elections in Jharkhand are expected to be spread out over multiple phases. In 2014, both Maharashtra and Haryana voted in a single phase in October, while the polls in Jharkhand were spread out over five phases in November-December in 2014.

The polls in Maharashtra and Haryana are considered crucial as they are the first electoral test for the BJP after its spectacular return to power at the Centre in May. In 2014, the BJP came to power in both Maharashtra and Haryana for the first time, marking a tectonic shift in politics in the two states, where the party had been a junior player till then.