Haryana, Maharashtra Assembly polls on October 15

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Sep 12, 2014:  Elections to the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly will be held in a single phase on October 15 and the counting of votes will be done on October 19, Chief Election Commissioner, VS Sampath, announced on Friday.

The elections, to be held more than four months after the BJP’s spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha polls, will check if the Narendra Modi wave still persists or has subsided.

For the beleagured Congress, the upcoming polls in the two states currently ruled by it are an opportunity to make a comeback and shed its losing streak after the Lok Sabha humiliation when the party was reduced to an all-time low 44 seats.

The Maharashtra Assembly has 288 seats while Haryana has 90. Sampath said there will be 16,244 polling stations in Haryana and 90,403 in Maharashtra.

In Maharashtra, the ruling Congress-NCP combine was severely punished by the voters in the general elections, with the combine winning just six of the 48 Lok Sabha seats.

The debacle strained their relationship and the two long-time allies have since then held tense negotiations over seat sharing for the Maharashtra polls.

The Sharad Pawar-led NCP has refused to play a junior partner to Congress anymore and wants to contest half of the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra. The two allies are yet to conclude their seat sharing agreements.

In Haryana too, the Modi wave helped the party win seven of the ten Lok Sabha seats. The party, which recently broke its ties with Kuldeep Bishnoi’s Haryana Janhit Congress, hopes to extend that performance in the Assembly polls.

 
Courtesy: Indiatoday