Telangana Assembly Polls: Election Commission to publish final voter list on October 8

Days after Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao cleared the pitch for early assembly polls in the state, the Election Commission (EC) on Saturday said that a final voter list will be published on October 8. To clear the very first hurdle, KCR on Thursday announced a premature dissolution of Telangana assembly, taking a step towards holding early elections in the southern state of India. However, Rao will now serve as the caretaker CM of Telangana until the new government is formed.

In the wake of early assembly dissolution in Telangana, the EC suspended the ongoing process of revision of electoral rolls and decided to prepare a fresh schedule ahead of state assembly elections. Under the new schedule, an integrated draft electoral roll will be published on September 10, the poll body added.

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The last date for filing claims and objections is between September 10 to September 25 while disposal of claims and objections will be taken up on October 4. The database updating process and printing of supplement will end before October 7.

Since October 8 is the date for final publication of the electoral roll, it seems like elections will take place any time between mid-October to December.

As per the earlier reports, youngsters, who will complete the age of 18 on or before January 1, 2019, are eligible to submit applications to include their names in the voter list. However, the second special summary revision announced on Saturday welcomes those candidates, who completed the age of 18 on January 1, 2018.

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To take a stock of the poll preparations in the state, the Election Commission will also send a team to Telangana on September 11. The commission indicated that the polls in Telangana would be held with four other states - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram later this year.