For Haryana Assembly Poll, Booths In Highrises Of Gurugram, Other Cities

The highrise apartment complexes in Gurugram and some other cities of Haryana will have their own polling stations in the upcoming assembly elections. The Election Commission has come up with the idea to tackle urban apathy. Haryana - with 90 assembly seats and 2.01 crore electors -  is set to vote on October 1. The results will be declared on October 4.

"Multistorey housing societies in Gurugram, Faridabad and Sonipa will have polling stations. This is one way of handling urban apathy," said Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar while announcing poll dates for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir.

The move can be effective in increasing the voting percentage as it is a common perception that people residing in multi-storey buildings usually show less interest in voting. 

Even during the recently held Lok Sabha elections, 52 polling booths were set up in 31 highrise societies in Gurugram. 

35 election booths were established in 22 societies under the Badshahpur Assembly constituency, and 16 booths were in 8 societies under the Gurgaon Assembly constituency. Apart from this, one booth was installed in one society under the Sohna Assembly constituency.

Elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases - September 18, September 25 and October 1 - with counting of votes on October 4.

Assembly elections are due in three states - Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand - with the terms of their legislative assemblies expiring on November 3 and November 26 and January next year.

And for Jammu and Kashmir, the Supreme Court recently set a deadline of September 30 to hold assembly elections. This is the first assembly polls in the Union Territory after Article 370 was scrapped in August 2019.