Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday announced the schedule for Bihar Assembly elections 2020.
The elections to elect 243-member assembly will take place in three phases. The first phase of elections will be held on October 28, the second phase of elections will be held on November 3 and the last phase of elections will be held on November 7. The counting of votes will take place on November 10.
For the first phase of elections, date of issue of notification is 1st October, last date of notification is 8th October, date of scrutiny of nomination is 9th October and the last date of withdrawal of nomination is 12th October. Date of the poll is 28th October. In the first phase, 71 assembly constituencies in 16 districts will go for the poll at approx 31000 polling stations.
For the second phase of elections, date of issue of notification is 9th October, the last date of notification is 16th October, date of scrutiny of nomination is 17th October. Date of the poll is 3rd November. In the second phase, 94 assembly constituencies in 17 districts will go for the poll at approx 42000 polling stations.
For the third phase of elections, date of issue of notification is 13th October, last date of notification is 20th October, date of scrutiny of nomination is 21st October, last date of withdrawal of nomination is 23rd October. Date of the poll is 7th November. In the third phase, 78 assembly constituencies in 15 districts will go for the poll at approx 33500 polling stations.
The EC issued a set of guidelines to be followed throughout the process in view of coronavirus pandemic.
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said, “Over 7 lakh hand sanitiser units, about 46 lakh masks, 6 lakh PPE kits, 6.7 lakh units of faces-shields, 23 lakh (pairs of) hand gloves arranged. 7.2 crore single-use hand gloves arranged for voters.”
Social distancing will be strictly adhered to and everyone will have to wear masks at polling booths. There will be one thousand voters per booth and those suffering from COVID-19 will have to vote in the last one hour of the polling process. The timing of the poll will be from 7 am to 6 pm, the EC’s guidelines stated.
