The Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for assembly elections in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana.

Bihar and Jharkhand will have 3-phase polls on February 3, 15, 23. The Naxalite-affected areas of Bihar and Jharkhand will go to polls in the first phase.

In Haryana, polling will be held on February 3.

Counting in all three states will take place on February 27 and the entire election process would be completed by March 5, 2005.

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The model code of conduct comes into force immediately, Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy announced at a press conference in Delhi on Friday evening.

Electronic Voting Machines would be used in all the three states. However, since the process of distributing voter identity cards had not been completed in the three states, the commission had decided to prescribe an alternative.

All the three states had been asked to execute all non-bailable warrants, nab anti-social elements and launch a drive to unearth illegal arms.

Central paramilitary forces would be deployed in all the three states and, in this context, consultations with the Union home ministry had been completed.

In a departure from the past, this time a general observer would be deployed in every constituency while an expenditure observer would be deployed for each district. Earlier, the EC used to deploy two general observers and one expenditure observer for every district.

The Election Commission had decided not to allow any camera or videography inside polling booths to maintain secrecy of ballot. However, the commission would carry out videography outside sensitive and hyper-sensitive booths to monitor the elections.

The commission had also asked all the states to transfer all government officials who had completed their tenure of three years in a particular district so that impartiality of the poll was maintained.