Saturday, September 3 2005 18:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Assembly elections in Bihar will be held in four phases on October 18 and 26 and November 13 and 19, the second polls to be held in ten months after the first exercise produced a hung house and a political stalemate.

Counting of votes will be taken up on November 22 and date before which election process shall be completed will be November 23.

Bringing the curtains down on speculation whether the elections would be gone ahead with in view of a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the dissolution of the assembly, the three members Election Commission met today (Sept 3, 2005) and finalized the schedule.

Announcing the schedule, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Tandon said notification for the first phase would be issued on September 23 and for the other three phases on September 28, October 19 and 26.

The last date of nominations will be September 30, October 5, October 26 and November 2. Scrutiny will be done on October 1 and 6 and October 27 and November 3 respectively.

Last date for withdrawal is October 3, 8 and 29 and November 5.

Tandon said that 'sufficient' number of Central Para Military Forces (CPMF) would be provided to the State where the Commission was 'not happy' on the state of affairs in the police administration.

Of the total 243 assembly constituencies, 61 will go to polls in the first phase, 69 in the second phase, 72 in the third phase and 41 in the last phase.

Flanked by Election Commissioners N Gopalaswami and Navin Chawla, the CEC said model code of conduct has come into force at once and the polling would be held through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The total electorate in the election will be 5.27 crore.

In addition to 50,063 polling booths set up in the last elections an estimated 7,300 more auxiliary polling stations will be set for the coming elections.

When asked what would the Commission would do if the Supreme Court stayed the elections, the CEC merely said, "If such a development occurs, then everyone will become aware of it".

'Not really happy with the situation'

Observing that as many as 76,471 Non-Bail able Warrants (NBWs) including permanent warrants against proclaimed offenders and absconders were pending execution in the state as on August 31 this year, Tandon said, "We are really not happy with the situation".

"It is very sad reflection on the state of affairs. It seems there is a hidden treasure from where more and more NBWs are detected every time efforts are made. I only hope it is the last find," the CEC said adding that the NBWs were concentrated in Siwan, Buxar, Aurangabad and Banka.

When the full Commission was in Patna, it expressed its 'unhappiness'. We are not happy with this state of affairs", he said adding that huge pendency of NBWs against whose warrants were pending could be reasonably expected to create criminal activities during the poll process.

He said that almost all political parties have urged the Commission to have maximum deployment of CPMF for the polls.

The CEC announced that unlike in the past when one officer will act as RO for only one constituency.

He said there would be one General Observer in each assembly constituency and at least one Expenditure Observer in each district to supervise the conduct of elections.

Asked about the advertisement being issued by the Railway Ministry headed by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, the CEC remarked that the model code has come into force and it is for all concerned to take note.

The Naxal Belt would be covered in the first phase

While the entire Naxal belt would be covered in the first phase involving 11 districts and four constituencies of Patna, second phase would have 69 constituencies in 11 districts.

The third phase having 72 constituencies in North Bihar is scheduled in such a way as to avoid threats from floods.

The last and fourth phase is the smallest one and covers four districts and nine remaining constituencies of Patna, Tandon said.

He said that there would be 'optimum' deployment of security forces as the security environment was 'no better than last time' and there was step up of Naxal activities and several thousand NBWs pending.

He said security deployment would be done under the supervision of the election Observers and the Commission would also monitor the deployment.

Noting that the Supreme Court had drawn the attention of the Commission for Deployment of Central Security Forces inside the polling booths in order to keep an eye on the 'mischief' as well on the poll staff, he said it was considered necessary to have maximum coverage of polling booths by CPMF.

Identification of voters at the polling booths would be mandatory. Extensive videography would be done and Central Government employees would be deployed to the extent possible on poll duties, he said.