The elections to the 70-member Delhi Assembly will take place on February 8 and results will be declared on February 11, the Election Commission announced on Monday. Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said the notification for the polls will be issued on January 14 while the last date for the withdrawal of candidature will be January 24. With the issuance of the notification, the nomination process will commence.
Responding to a question on the law and order situation in the national Capital, the Chief Election Commissioner said, “I won’t say we (the Commission) are very sanguine, but we are hopeful that they (police) will be able to control the situation (and make it) conducive for polls. And in any case in the polling process, if there is some kind of an extra-ordinary situation, always (there) are provisions for kind of deferring the polls. All these provisions are there. The Constitution empowers ECI to take a call if needed.”
This time Delhi will have 13,659 polling stations as compared to 11,763 in 2014, a jump of 16.89 per cent, according to an EC press note.
Over 1.46 crore voters can exercise their franchise in the February 8 Assembly election.
The Commission has decided to extend the facility of postal ballot for “absentee voters”, people with disability and those above 80 years of age in all 70 Assembly constituencies.
In a separate Press conference earlier in the day, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said there were no instructions regarding registration of refugees covered under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the electoral roll this time.
He said that as compared to the final voters list in 2019, the number of voters in Delhi has increased by 9.96 lakh in the final roll of 2020 (up to January 1).
For Delhi elections, the Commission will deploy 33,600 ballot units, 18,200 control units and 20,600 paper trail machines.