Jharkhand Election Date 2019: EC announces five-phase polling from 30 Nov, votes to be counted on 23 Dec

Voting for the 81 constituencies in Jharkhand Legislative Assembly will be held in five phases from 30 November with counting of votes scheduled to take place on 23 December, the Election Commission (EC) announced on Friday.

The five-phase voting will take place on 30 November, 7 December, 12 December, 16 December, and 20 December, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said. The term of the current 81-member Assembly ends on 5 January, 2020.

Of the 81 seats, nine are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and 28 for Scheduled Tribes (ST), the EC stated.

Of the population, which is 3.2 crore, 86 lakh are ST and 39 lakh are ST, the EC added.

As per the electoral rolls in January 2019, there are 1.18 crore male voters, 1.08 crore female voters and 40,336 service voters.

After Maharashtra and Haryana, Jharkhand is the third state to go to polls since Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the Lok Sabha election with a thumping majority in May this year.

At present, the state is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in an alliance with the All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU) under the leadership of Chief Minister Raghubar Das.

In 2014, the BJP rose to power after winning 37 seats, while its ally AJSU secured win in five seats. The combined tally was enough for the NDA to cross the majority mark of 41 seats.

The assembly polls in the Naxalism-affected state were held in five phases in 2014 as well.

Thirteen constituencies will go to the polls in the first phase, 20 in the second phase, 17 in the third, 15 in the fourth phase and 16 constituencies will go to polls in the fifth phase.

The BJP-AJSU coalition also swept the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha election winning 12 of of 14 parliamentary seats and reducing the Congress-JMM alliance to almost nothing.

As per reports, RJD is also part of the Opposition alliance formed by JMM and Congress.The BJP is hoping to retain power in Jharkhand following setbacks and winning fewer seats in both the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly election as compared to the 2014 polls in the two states.

In Maharashtra, where the BJP is the single-largest party, it won only 105 seats compared to the 122 it had won in 2014.

In Haryana, the BJP had to resort to a post-poll alliance with Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) – who was offered the post of deputy chief minister – in order to cross the majority mark in the 90-member Assembly. The saffron party, which had targeted winning 75 of the 90 constituencies in Haryana, could add only 40 to its kitty. In 2014, however, it had won 47 seats.

With inputs from PTI