Haryana Election 2019 Dates: Polls to be Held on October 21, Counting of Votes Three Days Later, Says EC

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Saturday announced the dates for Assembly polls in Haryana. The elections in the state will be held on October 21. Votes will be counted on October 24.

With this announcement, the Model Code of Conduct will come into force, which means the current state government cannot make any fresh announcements or roll out new schemes

The BJP had swept all 10 Lok Sabha seats in May and has been gunning for a 75+ tally in the 90-seat Assembly. The saffron party has 48 MLAs in the outgoing Assembly. The party’s main poll plank is clean governance, with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar pitching that his government has stopped corruption, eliminated the culture of middle men and made merit the basis of recruitment.

Confident of his win, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had recently said that the overwhelming support for the abrogation of Article 370 has broken all caste barriers in Haryana and the BJP's popularity has soared across all sections ahead of the assembly election.

"After abrogation of Article 370, the admiration of BJP and its leadership has further increased in Haryana and across the country," he said.

The Haryana CM termed the upcoming assembly election in Haryana a direct contest between the BJP's honest politics based on nationalism and the opposition's caste-based politics.

Talking about prospects of the party's win in the assembly elections, Khattar said BJP workers have set a target of winning more than 75 seats in the 90-member assembly and going by the party's performance in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, it is achievable.

Khattar had travelled to all 90 constituencies during his Jan Ashirwad Yatra, which started on August 18 and culminated in Rohtak on September 8.

The Congress, meanwhile, has reached out to the BSP for a pre-poll alliance in Haryana, with former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda holding a closed-door meeting with Mayawati. Sources said the meeting had lasted for over half an hour on Sunday night and saw the presence of newly-appointed state Congress President Kumari Selja as well.

The meeting was in the backdrop of Mayawati withdrawing pre-poll alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal's (INLD) breakaway faction Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), led by Dushyant Chautala, the grandson of OP Chautala. The JJP had offered 40 seats to the BSP, which it refused.

While the main opposition -- the INLD -- has been reduced to a minority as most of its legislators and leaders have joined the BJP, infighting continues to dog the Congress, which ruled Haryana for two consecutive terms till 2014.

However, whether the presence of new players in the political battle this time around would make any difference or not, would be interesting to see.