The Election Commission of India on Saturday announced dates of local assembly elections in five Indian states, including the politically consequential state of Uttar Pradesh, results of which will have a bearing not only on the next general election in 2024 but the way India is governed the next two years. A total of 180 million people will take part in this election.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made the elections a high-stake battle and has been campaigning personally in most of the states for the past weeks, backed by a massive advertisement blitz in multimedia platforms, and launching or laying the foundation stones of dozens of infrastructure projects in UP and other states.  

The holding of timely election is the "essence of maintaining democratic governance," Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said, as the top poll body defended its decision to go ahead with elections despite a frightening surge of COVID-19 cases in the third wave, NDTV said.

Polling will be held over seven phases starting in Uttar Pradesh starting on February 10. Punjab, Goa, and Uttarakhand will vote on February 14. Manipur will vote in two phases - on February 27 and March 3.

Counting for all states will take place on March 10 and results will be declared the same day. 

A total of 690 Assembly constituencies will vote over the next two months, with the maximum in UP (403 seats) followed by Punjab (117), Uttarakhand (70), Manipur (60) and Goa (40). 

The Election Commission (EC) said it had decided to go ahead with the polls after detailed discussions with the Union Health and Home Secretaries, experts, and health officials of the concerned states.

As part of its Covid-safety rules, the Commission has banned all physical rallies, roadshows, and meetings till January 15. This order will be reviewed later since the "ground situation is dynamic", the EC said. No rallies or political campaign events will be allowed between 8 pm and 8 am every day.

All political parties have been urged to campaign digitally where possible and limit activities in public. Door-to-door campaigning is limited to five people per campaigning team.

Further, all polling stations will be equipped with sanitisers and staff will wear face masks and follow all Covid-appropriate protocols.

All polling staff have been double vaccinated and will get "precautionary" - or booster - doses, the EC said.

(SAM)