Nagpur: The bhumipujan ceremonies and sops announcement spree by ruling party bigwigs have come to a grinding halt as State Election Commission has announced the schedule of biennial elections to five Teachers and Graduates constituencies to Maharashtra Legislative Council. The poll will be held on February 3. With this the code of conduct has come into force.
As per the poll schedule issued by the Election Commission, notification will be issued on January 10. Last date of filing of papers will be January 17 and scrutiny will be held on January 18. The last date of withdrawal is January 20. Polling will take place from 8 am to 4 pm on February 3. The counting of votes will take place on February 6.
The code of conduct will come into force with immediate effect in the districts where the constituencies are located, the release issued by the Election Commission said.
The five constituencies, where the sitting members retired on December 5, 2016 are — Nago Pundalik Ganar (Nagpur division- Teachers), Minister of State for Urban development and Home Ranjit Patil of BJP (Amravati division- Graduates), Vikram Kale of NCP (Aurangabad division- Teachers), Sudhir Tambe of Congress (Nashik division- Graduates) and Ramnath Mote (Konkan division- Teachers) independent.
There will be 124 polling centres in six districts of Nagpur Division. 34802 voters will exercise their franchise for this poll whereas in the last election the number of voters was 39850.
According to Divisional Commissioner, Biennial elections to these five constituencies could not take place within the prescribed time due to the order of Supreme Court on January 12 last year directing for preparation of electoral roll for all graduate and teachers constituencies afresh before elections.
Since the code of conduct has come into force, the ministers or people’s representatives will be barred from announcing new schemes or sops. The last few days had seen Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Gadkari were performing bhumipujan of one project or another and announcing various development projects.
