EC to announce Bihar poll dates today

The Election Commission will announce the dates for the Bihar polls on Friday (September 25). It is the first polls which will be conducted since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The term of the Assembly will end on November 29.

While the polls will be held for 243 Assembly seats, the EC may also announce dates for by-polls to one Lok Sabha and 64 Assembly seats.

Ahead of the polls, the EC has issued a set of guidelines to be followed during the voting process.

While the regulatory body has allowed filing of nominations online for the first time, it has limited the number of people for door-to-door campaigning to five. The strength of voters per booth has been reduced from 1,500 to 1,000 while the number of tables in a counting hall has been cut down from 14 to seven.

Voters will be given gloves before using the electronic voting machines, while those with high temperature will be allowed to vote in the last one hour of the polling process.

The election will see Nitish Kumar eyeing the seat of chief minister for the fourth time. His government has the support of Lok Janshakti Party led by Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha.

The Opposition, on the other hand, is led by RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav, which has been criticising the government over its poor handling of the coronavirus situation and recently for supporting the Centre’s farm bills.