Election Commission of India to announce Bihar poll dates today

The ECI will announce the dates at a press conference scheduled for 4 pm at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.

Last week, an ECI team- led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar- visited Bihar to review the poll-preparedness.

Kumar along with Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi held a detailed and a comprehensive review of the poll preparedness.

During day one of the two-day review visit, the Commission interacted with the representatives of recognized national and state political parties namely Aam Aadmi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Indian National Congress, National People's Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation), Janata Dal (United), Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Rashtriya Janata Dal and Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party and sought their suggestions.

Kumar termed political parties as a significant stakeholder of a strong democracy and called upon them to fully participate at every stage of the election process by appointing their polling and counting agents.

The commission encouraged the political parties to whole-heartedly celebrate elections in a festive spirit along with the voters.

The parties thanked the commission for successfully completing the historic Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and purifying the electoral rolls and reiterated their faith and trust in the electoral processes. 

Prior to Bihar visit, the ECI organised a briefing for General, Police and Expenditure Observers to be deployed as Central Observers for the forthcoming General Election to the Legislative Assembly of Bihar and bye-elections in certain states.

425 Officers including 287 IAS officers, 58 IPS officers, and 80 officers from IRS/IRAS/ICAS and other services attended the meeting. The briefing meeting was held at IIIDEM, New Delhi.

The Opposition had earlier lashed out at the ECI over SIR, which aims to flush out the ineligible voters including dead people and illegal immigrants.

The opposition parties including the Congress alleged the country's ruling BJP was using the ECI to disenfranchise people to win the elections.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had even announced his party might skip contesting the elections if SIR is conducted in the matter.

As the matter rolled over to the courtroom, the Supreme Court had directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar Card as an ID proof for people who were excluded from the fresh voters' list.

The ruling NDA comprising BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and LJP (Ram Vilas) will take on the RJD-Congress-Left alliance in the upcoming elections, where new political force Jan Suraaj led by former strategist Prashant Kishor is aiming to make a mark.