New Delhi | All the 70 assembly seats in Delhi will go to polls on February 5 and the votes will be counted on February 8, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced on Tuesday.
Bypolls to two assembly constituencies -- Milkipur in Uttar Pradesh and Erode in Tamil Nadu -- will also be held according to the same schedule. The bypoll was necessitated following the election of Milkipur MLA Awadhesh Prasad to the Lok Sabha and the death of Erode MLA EVKS Elangovan.
The CEC announced that bypolls in two constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir -- Budgam and Nagrota -- will take place later due to the current snowy conditions. The by-elections in West Bengal's Basirhat and Gujarat's Visavadar cannot be held till election petitions are pending, he said.
The last date to file nominations is January 17 and the scrutiny of nominations will be done by January 18. Candidates will be able to withdraw their nominations till January 20, Kumar said.
"It is a single-phase election... We have deliberately kept polling on a Wednesday so more people come out to vote... like we did in Maharashtra. The entire election process will be completed by February 10," Kumar said at a press conference.
Of the 70 seats in Delhi, 58 are general and 12 reserved.
According to the electoral roll, Delhi has 1.55 crore voters -- 83.49 lakh men, 71.74 lakh women and 1,261 transgender persons.
There are 25.89 lakh young voters, 2.08 lakh first-time voters, and 830 above the age of 100, Kumar said.
More than 13,000 polling stations will be set up in Delhi, he said.
In the 2020 polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 62 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) eight while the Congress drew a blank.
Kumar also said bypolls were due in two assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir -- Budgam and Nagrota.
"....because of snow conditions, we will do it later. We have time till April and we will complete those elections before that," he said.
"There are two more parliamentary constituencies -- Basirhat in West Bengal and Visavadar in Gujarat. In both the cases, there are election petitions pending and, according to rules, we cannot do by-elections till then," he added.
Election petitions can be filed against the winning candidate in the respective state high courts within 45 days of the declaration of results.
New Delhi | Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday defended the recent amendment to election rules restricting CCTV footage of polling booths from public inspection, saying it is meant to protect voters' privacy and prevent use of data for creating fake narratives.
Based on Election Commission's recommendation, the government had last month tweaked an election rule to prevent public inspection of certain electronic documents such as CCTV camera footage of polling stations to prevent misuse.
In his first remarks on tweak of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, Kumar said only sharing of CCTV footage from inside and outside polling booths have been restricted.
Addressing a press conference here to announce the schedule for Delhi Assembly polls, he said such data or footage was banned for public inspection through EC's instructions in 2024.
He said certain other documents which are allowed under Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules will continue to be available.
Some documents which are already restricted from sharing are forms filled by poll officials about the name of the voter and the identity shown by them before voting.
Kumar said rules were amended to "protect the identity of the voters as well as their profiling". He said if the footage is made public, the identity of those who voted and those who did not, would be revealed and was violative of privacy norms.
If footage of 10.5 lakh polling stations where suppose polling takes place for 10 hours is given out, it would mean data of one crore hours. "A person will need 3,600 years to go through the recordings if watched for eight hours daily," he said.
"Why does he want it? Let us ask this question from the person who wants it," Kumar said.
He said the poll authority has examples to prove that the data would be used for machine learning and using AI to create narratives.
The CEC said even fact checkers would not be able to find out whether the AI-generated videos of polling stations are fake or genuine.
He said things which are to be restricted are yet to be defined or prescribed in the rules.
The Union law ministry had amended Rule 93(2)(a) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, to restrict the type of "papers" or documents open to public inspection.
According to Rule 93, all "papers" related to elections shall be open to public inspection. The amendment inserts "as specified in these rules" after "papers".
The law ministry and EC officials separately explained that a court case was the "trigger" behind the amendment.
While documents such as nomination forms, appointment of election agents, results and election account statements are mentioned in the Conduct of Election Rules, electronic documents such as CCTV camera footage, webcasting footage and video recording of candidates during the Model Code of Conduct period are not covered.
"CCTV coverage, webcasting of polling stations are not carried out under Conduct of Election Rules but are the result of steps taken by the EC to ensure a level playing field," a former EC official explained.
An EC functionary said, "There have been instances where such electronic records were sought, citing the rules. The amendment ensures that only papers mentioned in the rules are available for public inspection and any other document which has no reference in the rules is not allowed for public inspection."
Candidates already have access to all documents and papers, and nothing has been amended in the rules in this regard, the functionary added.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in the recent Mahmoud Pracha vs EC case, had directed sharing all documents related to the Haryana Assembly elections, including treating CCTV camera footage as permissible under Rule 93(2), with Pracha.
The rule mentioned election papers. The election papers and documents do not specifically refer to electronic records, the EC functionaries said.
In order to remove this ambiguity, the rule has been amended to safeguard the misuse of CCTV camera footage of polling stations, another EC official explained.
A law ministry official said all election papers and documents were otherwise available for public inspection.
New Delhi | It is very difficult to define what a "freebie" is and the Election Commission's "hands are tied" on the issue as it is subjudice, CEC Rajiv Kumar said on Tuesday.
He also said it was "high time" that "accepted and legal answers" were found.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kumar was addressing a press conference to announce the schedule for the assembly polls in Delhi.
Asked about political parties announcing freebies during election campaigns, he said the matter was subjudice and referred to a court judgment that had held freebies were not "disallowed".
"What is freebie for me may be an entitlement for someone else... It is very difficult to define what a freebie is," Kumar said.
"Our proforma is on our website, this is high time it is accepted and legal answers are found but our hands are tied at the moment because the matter is subjudice," he added.
Kumar further said that while such announcements were made, people should also be aware of the state's fiscal health.
"It is necessary to see what is the fiscal health of a state... What is the debt-to-GDP ratio? How much will you borrow on that promise? How much is the financial cost of this promise?" he said.
"...We cannot mortgage the future of future generations, this is a very very serious issue," he added.
The Election Commission has proposed to amend the Model Code of Conduct to add a proforma to Part VIII (Guidelines on Election Manifesto) of the poll code.
It will require political parties to inform voters about the financial feasibility of the promises made in their manifestos and also if they are sustainable within the financial space of the state or the Union government.
The proposed proforma seeks details of revenue generation ways (through additional tax, if any), rationalising expenditure (cutting some schemes, if so required), impact on committed liabilities and/or raising of further debt and its impact on Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBM) limits.
The model code is a document that guides the poll panel in ensuring a level playing field for all political parties and candidates during elections.