The full Election Commission is soon expected to visit the states of Telangana and Mizoram to review poll preparedness in the two states, after the election schedules were announced on Saturday. Replying to a question at a press conference here as to how the Commission announced a schedule before visiting Telangana, Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat said, "You're right and this point is very valid. The commission didn't visit Telangana and there is a case pending in the High Court. The High Court case is about the electoral rolls. The High Court wants to see this before its final publication and the Commission has already taken a call keeping in view that there are things to be done.
"The Commission has already extended the time for publication from October 8 to October 12 and by that time we will have an electoral roll," he said.
Keeping the exigencies in mind, the CEC said Telangana had been put at the fag-end of the current phase of elections so that there is ample time available to conduct the poll.
"As regards the visit, that should have been done, but our team has visited Telangana and reviewed everything with the District Magistrates, Superintendents of Police, with the state machinery and everyone. They made a presentation to the Commission. We had also called the CEO to satisfy ourselves since the Commission was unable to go," Rawat told reporters.
"These tell us that anything which was not done during the official review has been completed. When the commission was fully satisfied only then the Telangana schedule was included in this phase of the poll," Rawat said.
He said his colleague has pointed out that the Commission has not visited Mizoram because they were hard pressed for time.
On Saturday, the poll panel announced that the state would have single-phase polling on December 7 to elect the new 119-member state Assembly. The counting and results would be announced on December 11.
The Telangana Assembly was dissolved on September 6, nearly nine months before its term was to end, to clear the way for early elections.
IANS inputs