J-K Assembly polls from Sept 18; Haryana votes on Oct 1; counting on Oct 4

Assembly Elections in Jammu and Kashmir: This is the first election in the newly drawn UT of J-K after the abolition of Article 370 in 2019

The Election Commission on Friday announced that the Assembly Elections in the state of Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1, 2024. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that the counting of votes will be done on October 4.

In Haryana, the Assembly Elections will coincide with the third phase of J-K from October 1 with counting of votes also scheduled for October 4, he informed.

Earlier in the day, the election body sent out a media invitation for a press conference at 3 pm but had not specified which states would be included in the announcement. This led to speculation that the EC would announce poll dates for Haryana, J-K, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand. However, the latter two were not included in today's press conference.

Jammu-Kashmir Assembly elections:

This is the first election in the newly drawn UT of J-K after the abolition of Article 370. Jammu and Kashmir has 11,838 polling stations to accommodate its 870,900 voters, which includes 426,000 women, spread across 90 constituencies, he said.

Following the delimitation process, Kashmir now has 47 legislative seats, an increase of one from before. This boundary reorganisation of the electoral constituencies occurred after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, which led to the division of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two separate Union Territories: J-K and Ladakh.

The EC’s announcement also falls in line with the Supreme Court deadline of concluding elections in the UT by September 30.

On the Jammu-Kashmir elections, he noted that all the political parties sought immediate polling in the state. Kumar and his colleagues had visited J&K on a two-day visit on August 8-9.

Kumar also announced that the electoral rolls for Jammu and Kashmir will be finalised on August 20, while those for Haryana will be finalised on August 27.

Haryana has a total of 20 million voters. The legislative assemblies of Haryana are set to complete on November 3.

On the successful completion of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 in June, Kumar remarked that the “chunaav ka parv” (festival of election) served as an impersonation of democracy, Kumar said.