STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: 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.
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.
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.
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.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the total electorate stands at approximately 87.09 lakh, according to the draft roll published on July 25, 2024.
The gender distribution includes around 44.46 lakh male voters and 42.62 lakh female voters.
The draft roll also underscores the presence of a substantial young voter base, with around 3.71 lakh first-time voters aged 18-19 years and 20.7 lakh voters aged 20-29 years.
Additionally, the region records 82,590 persons with disabilities (PwDs), 2,660 centenarians, 73,943 voters aged 85 years and above, and 169 third-gender voters.
The CEC said the ease of voting for Kashmiri migrants introduced during the recent Lok Sabha polls will be in place for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls as well.
He also lauded the democratic spirit of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
