Assembly Elections 2018: As Model Code of Conduct comes into effect, EC announces election dates for Telangana

Assembly elections 2018: The Election Commission of India (EC) on Saturday announced the final dates of upcoming in Assembly elections in as many as five states of the country including Telangana.  Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat, while addressing a media briefing, said that the state of Telangana would go to the polls on December 7 and results for all 119 seats in Telangana Assembly will be announced on December 11. The result date has been kept four days after the conduction single phase poll. The Telangana government, headed by Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had earlier dissolved the Assembly on September 6 seeking early polls. Interaction with media, Rawat said, “Telangana dissolved the state assembly prematurely and as per Supreme Court guidelines, it is incumbent on the EC to hold elections as soon as possible but not later than six months. Apart from Telangana, EC also announced dates for Assembly election in other states including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. The election body made this major announcement as it imposed a Model Code of Conduct in all the poll-bound states beginning today. "All poll going states, electoral rolls were published in September, as elections are scheduled to be held before December 15 and Telangana was also supposed to publish their rolls, but due to court proceedings, it will be published on October 12," he added. Rawat also mentioned the recent order of the Hyderabad High Court which directed EC not to notify the revised list of electoral rolls of Telangana till it heard a case on alleged discrepancies in the list. The EC Commissioner further informed that the model code of conduct was also officially into effect in all these poll bound states for the next three months. Rawat headed the meeting which was conducted earlier today and chief electoral officers of all five poll-bound states were in attendance. The CEOs of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram were present besides Rajat Kumar from Telangana. The TRS government in Telangana won 63 out of 119 seats while the Congress managed to bag 21 seats. Other parties including Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and AIMIM won 15 and 7 seats respectively.