Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat said on Monday that the dates for the Karnataka Assembly elections will be announced by April 15, NDTV reported.
Rawat said three election commissioners – Sunil Arora, Ashok Lavasa as well as himself – are likely to visit Karnataka in the first week of April to assess the state’s readiness for elections.
“School board examinations likely to be over by the end of March and other examinations around April 14,” the chief election commissioner said. “Keeping that in mind, we will announce the poll dates around April 15.”
Rawat said that he had received numerous calls from children in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha constituencies, where bye-elections will be held on March 11, clashing with the school examinations. He said the children complained that the noise and chaos that elections cause interfere with examinations.
The new legislature of Karnataka must be constituted before the present Assembly’s tenure ends on May 28, Rawat told NDTV. Hence, election results must be declared before that date.
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