Telangana polls unlikely before November-end

NEW DELHI: While the Election Commission will follow the due process of sending a team to Telangana to verify the ground realities of poll preparedness, sources in the election watchdog have indicated that the earliest a poll can be conducted in the state is in late November, around the time four other states are due to elect their new assemblies.
TOI has learnt that it will take around 28 days for Telangana’s electoral rolls to be revised.It is only after this that the polls can be announced. As per an assurance given by EC to the Supreme Court in 2001, there must be a maximum 21-day gap between announcement and issue of poll notification. If the 21-day norm is followed, the notification would start around the last week of October. Counting 10 days of the nomination process and 14 days of campaigning, the last days of November will kick in by the time polling is held. An EC functionary said with Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram polls required to be completed by December 15, the earliest occasion on which the Telangana polls can be held is along with elections in these four states.
While EC has time until March 5, 2019, to have a new Telangana assembly in place, an officer said there was need to minimise the term of caretaker government so that it does not take any “major administrative or financial decisions”.
A statement issued by EC on Friday said that a team of its officers led by senior deputy election commissioner Umesh Sinha would visit Hyderabad on September 11 to “assess the situation in the state regarding poll preparedness”. The full Commission too will pay a follow-up visit.
Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat said EC would review the ground level preparedness in Telangana with its chief electoral officer before deciding on the poll dates. “Whenever a House is dissolved prematurely, as per Hon’ble Supreme Court guidelines laid down in 2002, EC is required to initiate steps for holding elections for constituting legislative assembly on the first occasion and in any case within 6 months from date of premature dissolution,” he said.