The Jammu and Kashmir assembly election will be held in three phases on September 18, 25 and October 1. The Haryana assembly election where polling was set to take place on October 1, has been rescheduled to October 5. Votes will be counted for both on October 8. The assembly election will be held in Jammu and Kashmir over five years after the Centre divided the erstwhile state into two Union Territories - the other is Ladakh - and scrapped special status under Article 370 of the Constitution.
The Opposition that had objected to the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir's special status have been demanding for the election to be held. The Supreme Court in December 2023 had directed the Election Commission to hold the assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir by September 30 this year.While it was in effect, Article 370 gave Jammu and Kashmir its own Constitution and decision-making rights for all matters barring defence, communications and foreign affairs.The last assembly election was held in Jammu and Kashmir in November-December 2014.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the main regions that will vote in the second phase include Srinagar, Ganderbal, Poonch, Rajouri, and Reasi. The final phase will see people in north Kashmir, Udhampur, Jammu, and Kathua cast their vote.There are 90 seats in the Haryana assembly, including 73 General and 17 Scheduled Castes (SC) seats. As many as 10,321 centenarians voters will also be part of the democratic process.The term of the current assembly ends on November 3. Election officials had recently visited Haryana to oversee the poll preparedness.In 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats and formed the government with Dushyant Chautala's JJP (10 seats). But the alliance ended earlier this year with a change of guard in the BJP as Mr Saini replaced ML Khattar as the Chief Minister. The Congress ended up in the opposition with 31 seats.
