Goa Assembly Polls 2022: EC releases schedule, voting on February 14

All the 40 constituencies of Goa will go to the polls on February 14 in a single phase.

New Delhi: The schedule for the Goa Assembly Elections 2022 has been released by the Election Commission of India on Saturday. The state will go to the polls from February 14. According to the announcement, all the 40 constituencies of the state will go to voting in a single phase.

The last date of filing the nominations for the Goa assembly polls is February 28 and the counting of votes will be March 10. 

The Election Commission Chief Sushil Chandra also announced that the completion of scrutiny of nomination will be held on Jan 29 while withdrawal of candidature is scheduled to be on Jan 31.

He further added that the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) will come into effect immediately from the announcement of the schedules.

Assembly elections in all five states will be completed in total seven phases and Goa will go into polling in the second phase.

The Goa Legislative Assembly is currently being led by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Pramod Sawant in coalition 3 Goa Forward Party MLAs, 3 Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party MLAs, and 3 Independents MLAs while the Congress sits in opposition.

In 2017, BJPs Manohar Parrikar led the party to a sweeping 21-seats majority win in Goa after which the leader was elected as the chief minister.

Apart from the ruling BJP and independent candidates, the other contenders for Goa’s ruling post the Indian National Congress (INC), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Goa Vikas Party (GVP), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Save Goa Front (SGF),  All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) and the Goa Suraksha Manch.

In the 2022 Goa Assembly Elections, BJP will again present Pramod Sawant as its Chief Ministerial candidate while Mamata Banerjee’s TMC will fight the elections in collaboration with MGP.

As per Election Commission, a total of 18.34 crore electors including service voters will take part in this election out of which 8.55 crore are women electors. Notably, 24.9 lakh first-time electors are registered in the 5 States.