‘ECI ready for simultaneous assembly, LS polls in 2018’

BHOPAL: The Election Commission (EC) would be ready to hold assembly and Lok Sabha elections simultaneously after September next year, election commissioner OP Rawat said on Wednesday, a move that could cut poll costs by hundreds of crores of rupees.

The BJP-led government at the Centre has been aggressively pushing for the system of simultaneous parliamentary and assembly polls that was prevalent in India till 1967.

While parliamentary polls are scheduled for 2019, assembly elections will be due in eight states after September 2018. Elections in Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Karnataka are slated for the middle or end of 2018. Polls for the remaining three states — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan — will be held in the early 2019. “We told the government what we have and what we need. We told the government about the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and other related things that we need and how much money will be required for the same,” Rawat said.

Rawat said the panel would require 40 lakh election-related equipment. “We required ₹3,400 crore for VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) and ₹12,000 crore for EVMs,” he said.

Rawat said the government has provided the funds, following which the poll panel has placed orders for manufacturing of additional equipment.