Bengaluru,
On Tuesday, Before the Election Commission announced the dates for the Karnataka Assembly Elections, a controversy exploded over a post by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya on Twitter. Before Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat declared the dates, Malviya tweeted that the polling will be held on May 12 and the results would be declared on May 18.
Disturbing the press conference by the Chief Election Commissioner, reporters asked Rawat as to how Malviya announced the voting and counting dates even before the EC made the official announcement. Taking cognition of the same, to this Rawat replied it “as a serious issue”, and assured that action would be taken if the body finds any wrongdoing. He, however, went on to declare the dates.
While the polling date coincided with what Malviya tweeted, the date for counting of votes was different. Instead of March 18, the EC declared it as March 15. But Malviya deleted the tweet a few minutes following the controversy.
The official dates announced by the Election Commission:
Notification: April 17, 2018
Last date of nomination – April 24, 2018
Date of scrutiny of nomination – April 26, 2018
Last date of withdrawal – April 27, 2018
Date of the poll – May 12
Date of counting of votes – May 15
