New Delhi: The Election Commission has announced the dates for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram Assembly elections. Results of the upcoming elections in five states will be declared on December 11.
While Chhattisgarh will go to the polls in two phases on November 12 and 20, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram Assembly will face single-phase elections on November 28.
Announcing the dates, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) OP Rawat said, Rajasthan and Telangana will go to polls on December 7.
Counting of votes will be held across all the five states on December 11.
The latest EC announcement, like the Karnataka election dates announcement in May, was also not short of controversy as the poll panel’s press conference was delayed by 3 hours and Congress smelled a “conspiracy” behind the move.
The EC was to initially hold a press conference at 12.30 pm Saturday, but the announcements were made only at 3pm.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “putting pressure” on the EC to delay its press conference to announce poll dates in five states as he was scheduled to address a rally in Rajasthan.
With the announcement, Model Code of Conduct comes into effect in all five states, which prevents the state governments from announcing sops and policy changes that might influence the voters.
At an Ajmer rally, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje announced free electricity for farmers, just before the EC announced the dates on Saturday afternoon.