Tamil Nadu assembly elections will be held in a single phase on April 6 and the counting of votes will be done on May 2, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Friday.
With this announcement, the model code of conduct comes into force. The assembly elections in the southern state are important for the national as well as the regional political parties.
Polls will be held for 234 seats in Tamil Nadu with the Congress-DMK and BJP-AIADMK alliance being the major groups contesting against each other.
The Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre and the AIADMK-led government in the state can sense the ascendance of the DMK and seem determined to base their strategy on issues such as OBC reservation and religion-related controversies.
The opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led front, which includes the Congress, had won 37 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu in 2019.
AIADMK said they are running the government in accordance with J Jayalalithaa's wishes. But with the support of the BJP at the centre, AIADMK implemented GST and demonetisation and introduced Neet exams in Tamil Nadu after the untimely death of Jayalalithaa in December 2016.
This is the first major set of elections to be held in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic after the Bihar election. The voting hours have been increased by an hour. The number of polling booths has also been increased from 66,007 to 88,936.
The state assembly elections will be conducted following all Covid-19 protocols issued by the Union Health Ministry. Similar to the Bihar polls, candidates for the election will also follow the guidelines while officials inside polling booths will wear masks, face shields, and gloves and use stisers.
( With inputs from ANI )
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