Polls in Jammu & Kashmir to be held in 3 phases; voting to begin on Sept 18: ECI

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The Election Commission of India on Friday announced the dates for elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana. The elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the ECI said, will be held in three phases. The first phase of voting will begin on September 18, the second phase of voting will be held on September 25, third phase on October 1. Meanwhile, the polls in Haryana will be held on October 1 in a single phase

The counting of votes for both elections will be conducted on October 4.

The Chief Election Commissioner said that electoral rolls for Jammu & Kashmir and Haryana are to be finalised on August 20 and 27 respectively.

While announcing the election schedule for Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that the union territory, across the 90 constituencies, has 87.09 lakh voters of which 42.6 lakh are women and 44.46 lakh are men. He said that of the 90 seats, 74 are of the general category, seven seats have been reserved for Scheduled Castes and nine have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

He further stated that there are 3.71 lakh first-time voters in the union territory and 20.7 lakh are young voters. He said, "The Amarnath Yatra will end on August 19 and the final voter list will also be published on August 20."

During his announcement of the Haryana elections, CEC Kumar said the state has a total of 90 assembly constituencies among that 73 are for the general category while 17 seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes. There are no seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the state.

"There will be a total of 2.01 crore voters in Haryana, of which 1.06 crore are males, 0.95 crore are females. There are 4.52 lakh first-time voters and 40.95 lakh are young voters. The electoral roll of Haryana will be published on August 27, 2024," CEC Kumar said.

CEC Rajiv Kumar, during the press conference held with election commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Sandhu, said that the ECI recently visited Jammu & Kashmir and Haryana to take stock of the election preparation in these places and they saw that people were enthusiastic.

"People wanted to participate in the election process; they want elections to be conducted as early as possible. The long queues at the polling booths in Jammu and Kashmir during the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 are proof that people don't just want change but also want to raise their voices by becoming a part of the change. This glimpse of hope and democracy shows that people want to change the picture," said CEC Kumar.

He added that the people wanted to write their destiny. "The people of Jammu and Kashmir chose ballot over bullet in Lok Sabha elections," he said.