Maharashtra, Haryana to go to polls on October 21

Maharashtra and Haryana will go to polls on October 21 to elect the new legislative assemblies of the States, the Election Commission announced on Saturday.

The counting will be held on October 24 and the results are expected on the same day. The term of the current 70-member legislative assembly in Haryana will end on November 2.
The tenure of the current 288-member legislative assembly in Maharashtra will also end on November 9.

The assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana are going to be the first after Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections and won a second term in office for his government.

The Congress is going to be the principal challenger to the ruling BJP in Haryana, where Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has been heading the Government since 2014. The Congress and its ally Nationalist Congress Party will contest the elections to dislodge the coalition government of the BJP and the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Polling for bye-elections to fill up 15 vacancies in State Assembly of Karnataka will also be held on October 21 and the votes will be counted on October 24. Polling for bye-elections to fill up 49 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of other states across the country will also be held on October 21 and the votes will be counted on October 24.