Election Commission Announces Assembly Elections in 5 Indian States
By RMN News Service
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced the schedule for the 2022 assembly elections in 5 states: Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh (UP).
In a statement issued today (January 8), the ECI said that the UP election will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7 while Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Goa will undergo polling in a single phase on February 14. Manipur vote will take place in two phases on February 27 and March 3. The counting of votes for these states will be held on March 10, 2022.
The statement adds that the elections will be held for 403 assembly seats in UP, 117 in Punjab, 70 in Uttarakhand, 60 in Manipur, and 40 in Goa.
In response to the petitions sent in September and November 2021 to Chief Election Commissioner and President of India as well as the Chief Justice of India (CJI), the ECI has made it mandatory for political parties to upload on their websites detailed information regarding their candidates with pending criminal cases.
The parties are also required to explain why they selected certain candidates with criminal records. [ You can click here to download and read the petitions. ]
As Covid infections are increasing rapidly in India, the election authority has also banned crowded election rallies until January 15 when the situation will be reviewed to decide whether or not normal election campaigns should be allowed.
The ECI also said that the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) comes into effect immediately. So, now political parties and candidates will have to run disciplined campaigns.
