The Election Commission of India on Friday announced that elections for 243 legislative assembly seats in Bihar will take place in three phases In phase 1, 71 assembly constituencies in 16 districts will vote on 28 October. In the second phase 94 assembly constituncies in 17 districts will vote on 3 November and in the final phase 78 assemblies in 15 districts will vote on 7 November.
The results will be declared on 10 November.
Bihar, which has a 243-member assembly, will be the first major state to hold elections during the pandemic.
Not more than 1,000 voters will be allowed at a polling station—down from the 1,500-limit, said the Commission when it declared coronavirus safety measures in August. As a result of these guidelines, the number of polling booths in Bihar will cross the 100,000 mark this time while it was 65,337 in 2015, informed the CEC Sunil Arora. Voters will undergo temperature checks and they will have to wear facemasks that they have to remove briefly for identification. Voters will get gloves at the time of signing, register, and pressing the EVM button. Polling time has been increased by 1 hour and will take place between 7 am and 6 pm.
Over 700,000 hand sanitiser units, about 4.6 million masks, 600,000 PPE kits, 670,000 units of faces-shields, 2.3 million (pairs of) hand gloves have been arranged. More than 72 million single-use hand gloves have been arranged for voters, said the CEC.
With this announcement, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has also come into force.
The Commission has capped the size of the campaign squad to three people for door-to-door visits and allowed only five cars, instead of 10, in a candidate’s convoy for roadshows. Only two people will accompany a candidate for filing her nomination papers.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will fight for a fourth term in these elections, leading the National Democratic Alliance in partnership with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Rashtriya Janata Dal of jailed former chief minister Lalu Yadav and the Congress form the Opposition in the elections.
Bihar had 169,651 coronavirus cases and 870 deaths from the disease till date, Business Standard's national dashboard showed this morning.
A report by the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations notes that more than 60 countries postponed voting for the coronavirus pandemic, as dozens of others, including Burundi, France, and South Korea, went forward with their elections. South Korea reported no new cases related to its April election.
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