Poll dates announced for Haryana & J&K; Voting on Sep 18, 25 and Oct 1; Counting on Oct 4

On Friday, the Election Commission announced that the Assembly Elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases: September 18, September 25, and October 1, 2024. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that the counting of votes will be done on October 4. In Haryana, the Assembly Elections will coincide with the third phase of J-K from October 1 with the counting of votes also scheduled for October 4, he informed.

This is the first election in the newly drawn UT of J-K after the abolition of Article 370. Jammu and Kashmir has 11,838 polling stations to accommodate its 870,900 voters, which includes 426,000 women, spread across 90 constituencies, he said.
Following the delimitation process, Kashmir now has 47 legislative seats, an increase of one from before.

This boundary reorganization of the electoral constituencies occurred after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, which led to the division of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two separate Union Territories: J-K and Ladakh. Haryana has a total of 20 million voters. The legislative assemblies of Haryana are set to complete on November 3.