EC announces three-phase assembly elections for J&K from Sep 18; Haryana polls to begin on Oct 1

Assembly elections will be held in Jammu and Kashmir after nearly a decade in three phases from September 18, setting the stage for the people of the union territory to elect a government after the scrapping of Article 370 in 2019.

The Election Commission also announced that elections to the 90-member Haryana assembly will be held on October 1 and results for both the polls will be declared on October 4.

The three-phase elections to the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly will be held on September 18, September 25 and October 1, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told a press conference in the presence of Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu.

Kumar said assembly elections in Maharashtra, which were held along with Haryana in 2019, will be announced later due to security requirements for Jammu and Kashmir.

He said four elections are due this year and by early next year and since Jammu and Kashmir was not in the picture last time (2019-20) the Commission decided to group two assembly elections together.

Besides Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana, elections are due in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi.

Kumar said the next set of elections will be announced after the completion of the polls in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana.

While 24 seats will go to the polls in the first phase in Jammu and Kashmir, elections will be held in 26 seats and 40 seats in the second and third phases respectively.

The last assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in November-December 2014 in five phases.

The announcement by the Election Commission comes months after the Supreme Court upheld the Centre's decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir's special status and directed that Assembly elections be held by September 30.

(PTI)