The Election Commission of India on Friday announced the schedule for assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana. The elections in J&K will be held in three phases starting from September 20. In Haryana, the elections will be held on October 1. The results for J&K and Haryana will be declared on October 4.
While many anticipated that Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar would announce the schedule for the Maharashtra elections as well, he explained why this wasn’t the case. He said, Maharashtra elections will be announced later due to security requirements in Jammu and Kashmir.
“In the past, Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections were held together, and at that time, Jammu and Kashmir was not a factor. This year, however, we have four elections to manage initially—J&K, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand—and a fifth one shortly after in Delhi.”
“Given the requirement for security forces and the recent heavy rainfall in Maharashtra along with upcoming festivals, we have decided to conduct two elections simultaneously.”
The 288-member Maharashtra legislative assembly tenure of the current government ends in October 2024. The Maharashtra election will see a two-way fight between the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition, of the UBT Sena, NCP -Sharad Pawar and the Congress, and the Maha Yuti Alliance of the BJP, Shiv Sena-Eknath Shinde and NCP-Ajit Pawar. In 2019, the BJP and the undivided Shiv Sena coalition came to power in the state but later split.