India gears up for first election amid pandemic as dates for Bihar Assembly polls announced

The Election Commission of India on Friday announced the assembly election dates of one of the largest states Bihar.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora said more than 700,000 hand santisers, 600,000 PPE kits, 670,000 units of face-shields and 2.3 million pair of hand gloves have been arranged for the polls.

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The election will be in three phases and the voting for the first phase will be on October 28, with the declaration of results on November 10.

The voting for the second and third phase will be on November 3 and 7 respectively.

The election commission said in the first stage, voting will be held for 71 seats, followed by next stages where polling will take place for 94 and 78 seats.

The election commissioner also said the candidates can file their nomination online and the security money can also be transferred in online mode.

The door-to-door campaigning is also restricted to three people and not more than a convoy of five cars can be used for campaigning.

Also, only 1,000 voters will be allowed to cast their vote at a polling station, which was earlier 1,500.

He also said Covid-19 patients will also be able to cast their vote on the last day of voting at their respective polling stations under the supervision of health authorities. He said this facility is provided to them apart from the the option of postal ballot already extended to such people.

Earlier, the apex court on Friday refused to postpone the upcoming Bihar elections in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.