The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday announced that voting for the 70-member Assembly in Delhi will be held on February 5 (Wednesday) and its outcome will be known on February 8 (Saturday), in what is expected to be a triangular contest among the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.

With the announcement of the date of the poll, the model code of conduct (MCC) has now come into effect in the national capital.The term of the 70-member Delhi Assembly will end on February 23.

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Addressing a press conference here, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, while announcing the schedule for the assembly polls in Delhi, said, “The assembly elections in Delhi will be held in a single phase on February 5. The counting of votes will take place on February 8.”

The CEC said the notification for the polls will be issued on 10th January and the last date of filing nominations is on January 17. The scrutiny of nominations will take place January 18. Kumar said the last date for withdrawal of candidature is January 20. The date before which the election shall be completed is February 10.

Informing that there are 70 assembly constituencies in Delhi, he said out of these, 12 assembly constituencies are reserved for the SCs.

He said that a total of 1.55 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in Delhi. The first time voters are 2.08 lakh in number. He said the total number of polling stations is 13,033 spread across 2,697 locations in the national capital.

While reiterating that the poll panel is committed to ensure free and fair elections, the CEC also called upon voters of Delhi to come out in large numbers and exercise their franchise.

He also informed the media that the Commission has issued instructions to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi to ensure that every polling station is equipped with assured minimum facilities (AMF) like drinking water, waiting shed, toilet with water facility, adequate arrangements for lighting, ramp of proper gradient for the PwD electors and a standard voting compartment, proper signage etc.

He said the poll panel has directed CEO and District Election Officers (DEOs) to make efforts to make a permanent ramp and permanent infrastructure at every polling station.The CEC also said the poll panel would take strict action against derogatory remarks on women and use of children during the poll campaign.

The upcoming Delhi assembly elections would see a triangular contest among the three major parties-AAP, BJP and Congress.

Notably, the AAP and Congress, which are part of the INDIA bloc and had contested the last Lok Sabha elections together in Delhi, are contesting these elections solo. In the general elections, out of the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi, both these parties drew a blank with BJP winning all seven seats.

The ruling AAP has been critical of the Congress, and recently at a presser ,its senior leader Sanjay Singh accused the grand old party of helping the BJP and said it would ask other parties of INDIA bloc to remove it from the Opposition alliance, in what can be seen as a dent in alliance unity.

The Congress, which has been accusing the AAP government of corruption, had earlier blamed the party for the dismal performance of the alliance in Delhi in the Lok Sabha elections.

In the 2020 Assembly polls, the AAP won 62 Assembly seats and BJP eight constituencies, while in 2015 polls, AAP bagged 67 seats and BJP won only three seats.The Congress drew a blank on both these occasions.