Maha, Haryana assembly polls on Oct 15, counting on Oct 19

Assembly elections in 288 seats in Maharashtra and 90 seats in Haryana will be held on October 15 and counting will take place on October 19, Election Commission announced today.

Giving details of the election schedule, Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath said apart from these states, byelections will be conducted on the same day for five assembly seats in five states -Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

Byelections for two Parliamentary constituencies in Maharashtra's Beed and Odisha's Kandhamal will also be held on October 15 and counting for all the seats will take place on October 19.

The Model Code of Conduct comes into effect immediately for all the seats going to polls, Sampath said.

Notification for polls will be issued on September 20 and last date for filing nomination is September 27 for all seats except Kandhamal for which the notification will be on September 19 and last date of nomination is September 26.

Asked about elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which is witnessing worst-ever floods, Sampath said the Commission was watching the situation very closely in the state and "a decision will be taken after things come to some shape".

The Election Commissioner said Haryana assembly's term will expire on October 27 while Maharashtra assembly's would end on November 8.

However, there was still some time for the terms of J&K and Jharkhand assemblies to expire, he added.