Update (11 October 2023): The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced assembly general election dates for the states of Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana today. The press release can be downloaded here. The election schedule can be seen in the below tweet. The polling date for Rajasthan has been changed to 25 November 2023 from the earlier 23 November 2023 due to “largescale wedding/social engagement” on that day.
A notice from the Election Commission of India (ECI) is being widely shared claiming that the ECI has announced assembly general election dates for the states of Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana. Let’s check the veracity of this information through this article.
Claim: The Election Commission of India has announced 2023 election dates for the states of Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana.
Fact: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has begun the election process for the states of Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana. But the election dates have not been announced yet. The ECI gave instructions to the election officials of the states regarding the expiry of the term of the legislature in the respective states, which were misinterpreted as election dates and shared on social media. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
As per news reports, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, and Rajasthan are scheduled to have elections this year (2023). Hence, the Election Commission of India has begun the election process in these states. It is in this context that the ECI has issued orders to the Chief Electoral Officers of the respective states regarding the transfers and postings of officials in the five states where the elections will be held.
Copies of these orders have also been reported by several news organisations (here and here). What is currently going viral is the copy of the instructions sent by the ECI to these five states.
But in this copy, the ECI has not announced the election dates of five states. The dates mentioned refer to the end of the term of the current legislature in these five states, which were mistakenly interpreted as the date of elections in the viral post. The term of the Mizoram state legislature will end in December this year, while the term of the other four states will end in January 2024.
Earlier, the ECI had issued instructions to the Chief Electoral Officers of these five states regarding the revision of voter lists in the states in the wake of the elections. But as of now, the ECI has not announced the election dates in these five states except that they have begun the election process. As the legislature has not yet been dissolved in these states, there is still time for the announcement of the dates.
To sum up, the expiry dates of the term of the legislature in five states released by the Election Commission of India are wrongly shared as the dates of election.
