A file photo from voting in Karnataka held earlier this year
The Election Commission will today announce election dates for five states, seen as a semi-final round before the national polls due in May.
Sources say the assembly elections in the poll-bound states - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Delhi - will be held starting from the second half of November and end by the first week of December. The results are likely to be declared by the first week of December as tenures of assemblies in four states ends in December.
While polls to elect the 70-member Delhi Assembly, 200-member Rajasthan assembly and 40-member Mizoram assembly are expected to be in a single phase, those in naxal-affected Chhattisgarh are likely to be held in phases due to the availability of security forces. Chhattisgarh has to elect a new 90-member state assembly while Madhya Pradesh has to elect 230-member state assembly.
A series of rallies in these states, featuring BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, have raised political temperatures long before the announcement of poll dates.
For the first time, voters in these elections will have the option of rejecting all candidates on offer by using the "None of the above" button in the Electronic Voting Machine. The Supreme Court had said this would empower voters and encourage political parties to put up clean candidates.
The Election Commission has asked for 60,000 paramilitary personnel to conduct the elections.