As the tenure of the 70-member Delhi assembly ends on February 22, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday announced the fresh schedule of holding the Delhi assembly election on February 8, reports BSS.
Addressing newsmen, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said the polling will take place on February 8 and counting on February 11 while results are expected to be announced on the same day.
According to ECI, a total of 1,46,92,136 voters are eligible to vote for the polls. Some 13,750 polling stations would be set up in which 90,000 officers would be deployed to ensure a free, far and peaceful election.
The Model Code of Conduct would be strictly followed for holding a peaceful election, the CEC told newsmen.
The last assembly election in the national capital was held in 2015 when Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) secured 67 seats out of 70 and the remaining three went to BJP and Congress.
In the 2015 polls, the AAP emerged with 54.3 per cent of the vote share while the BJP secured 32.3 per cent and the Congress trailed with a poor 9.7 per cent, according to media reports.
This will be the first election since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP slipped to a surprise defeat in Jharkhand – its second state of 2019 – last month.
The BJP lost to an opposition alliance led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and including the Congress.
Media reports however, hinted that the issues like citizenship law and the NRC may feature prominently in the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls as the incumbent Chief Minister Kejriwal has joined with the non-BJP state leaders
and politicians who have voiced opposition to it and programmes like the NRC and NPR.
This will also be the first polls in the national capital since the BJP swept to a massive win in Lok Sabha polls early last year. The party swept all 7 parliamentary seats in Delhi. The BJP and AAP have already launched their election campaign formally last month.