Uttarakhand Assembly Polls 2022 schedule released, state to go to polls on February 14

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India on Saturday announced the polling schedule for the Uttarakhand Assembly Elections 2022. As per the announcement, the Uttarakhand Assembly Elections for 70 constituencies of the hill state will take place on February 14 in a single phase.

Additionally, the counting of the poll-bound constituencies will be March 10.

The Election Commission Chief Sushil Chandra also announced that the last date for filing the nominations will be on January 28. The completion of scrutiny of nomination will be held on Jan 29.

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

At present, the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha is being led by Bharatiya Janata  Party’s Pushkar Singh Dhami, who succeeded BJP’s Trivendra Singh Rawat as the chief minister of the state in July 2021 after a high voltage political drama.

The saffron camp will enter into the polls with Dhami as its Chief Ministerial candidate for the 2022 elections as well.

Meanwhile, Congress is likely to push Harish Rawat as its CM candidate after he hinted at his dissatisfaction with the state party leadership and met the big bananas of the national party earlier in December.

The Aam Admi Party is also seen in action after party president Arvind Kejriwal during a rally announce Rs 1 crore compensation for the kin of all martyred soldiers from Uttarakhand. AAP is banking on Ajay Kotiyal for its CM face.

The elections to the Uttarakhand Assembly were last held in 2017. At the time, the ruling Congress suffered a huge setback after the BJP claimed a sweeping victory in the polls by securing 57 of the 70 seats.

Congress won only 11 seats in the hill state while 2 seats were won by Independent candidates.

Mayawati’s BSP and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party failed to secure even a single seat in the 2017 Assembly polls.

However, the commission has also announced the schedule of four states, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab and Manipur, which will go to polls this year.

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.