Five states go to Assembly polls from November 7-30, results on December 3

The results of these elections were thought to indicate the national mood, especially of the heartland states, before the Lok Sabha polls

The Assembly elections in three key Hindi heartland states of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, along with Telangana and Mizoram, will be held from November 7 to November 30, and counting of votes is scheduled for December 3, the Election Commission (EC) announced on Monday.

While Mizoram will go to polls on November 7, Chhattisgarh will vote in two phases on November 7 and 17, MP on November 17, Rajasthan on November 23, and Telangana on November 30. The EC said 161.4 million electors, a sixth of the total, will exercise their right to vote in the final round of Assembly polls before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

 

The results of these elections are thought to indicate the national mood, especially of the heartland states, before the Lok Sabha polls next year.

While the Congress currently runs governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power in MP, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, and the Mizo National Front, an ally of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), in Mizoram. This will also be the first round of polls after 26 parties formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. However, its constituents, such as the Aam Aadmi Party and Samajwadi Party, have decided to field candidates against ally Congress in the Hindi heartland states.

Announcing the poll schedule, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar bemoaned the flurry of freebies that state governments announce barely a month or a fortnight before the polls. “There is undoubtedly a ‘tadka’ of populism in these announcements,” Kumar said, adding how it becomes difficult to either implement or stop such sops for the winner of the elections, which is why people had a right to know how these freebies will be implemented.

“(There is) some announcement in one state and some other announcement in others. I don’t know why it is not remembered for five years, and all the announcements are made in the last month or 15 days. Anyway, that is the domain of the state governments,” the CEC said, adding that the issue was currently sub-judice and the poll panel would act as soon as there was more clarity.

Kumar said that the EC last year formulated a pro forma for parties and states to explain how and when the promises made by them in their poll manifesto would be implemented. The proforma stated that while parties were free to announce what they would do if they formed the government, voters had a right to know how and how much of their promises would be implemented and the deadline, the CEC said.

The EC sought to know from parties the ramifications of their promises on the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio of the state, the amount of debt they would seek, interest payment to total revenue received and whether they would breach the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) targets. The governments were also asked whether they will cut allocations to some schemes to facilitate rolling out of the promised schemes and whether there will be an extra tax burden on the people.

“The intention behind it was to bring everything into the public domain,” Kumar said.

Voters should know the picture that emerges on the basis of financial fundamentals, he said, adding there has to be a balance between present versus mortgaging the future generations. Last year, the EC’s move came amid the freebies versus welfare measures debate, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi dubbed “revdi culture”.

Kumar said the EC has come up with a technology-based mechanism, the Election Seizure Management System, to keep a record of the seizure of cash, drugs and freebies to induce voters, which will be put to use for the first time during the Assembly poll in five states. Agencies have been directed to update the seizures on the platform. It will also show whether the action taken has been uploaded to the system. 

Pointing out the success in seizures, the CEC said seizures have increased significantly. In 2018, agencies in Karnataka seized Rs 83 crore worth of cash, drugs, etc, which increased to Rs 384 crore in the 2023 Assembly polls. In Tripura, such seizures increased from Rs 1.79 crore to Rs 45 crore between the two Assembly elections in 2018 and 2023, while it increased from Rs 27 crore to Rs 800 crore in Gujarat, from Rs 1.1 crore to Rs 74 crore in Meghalaya and Rs 9 crore to Rs 59 crore in Himachal Pradesh.

On the likelihood of Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, the CEC said elections would be held at the “right time” keeping in mind the security situation there. He said rules regarding postal ballots were recently changed on the EC’s recommendations to check potential misuse. According to the new rule, polling personnel in the five states will have to cast their votes at designated facilitation centres only and cannot keep the ballot papers with them for long. “We will not call it a misuse of the postal ballot. But if government servants using postal ballot facilities start a bargain -- they have their interests -- that is not legitimate,” he said.

This year, the EC has shrunk the gap between the date of announcement of the election schedule, the dates of polling and counting of votes. In 2018, the EC announced the poll schedule on October 6 with the counting of votes on December 11. In 2018, Chhattisgarh's two-phased polling took place on November 12 and 20, while this year it is slated for November 7 and 17. Rajasthan went to polls on December 7, while this year its polling is on November 23. Five years back, Telangana went to the polls on December 7 and will vote this year on November 30. Madhya Pradesh voted on November 28 in 2018, and will vote on November 17 this year. The most interesting is Mizoram's case, which in 2018 voted on November 28, but this year it will vote on November 7, and await election results for nearly four weeks.