LS polls from April 16

To be conducted in 5 phases
Counting on May 16
Code of conduct in force
New Delhi, March 2
The Election Commission of India today announced the much-awaited dates for holding elections to the 15th Lok Sabha. The general elections would be conducted in five phases — between April 16 and May 13 — while the counting would be done on May 16. The model code of conduct, too, was enforced with immediate effect.

The poll schedule was announced at a press conference here this afternoon by Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and Election Commissioners Naveen Chawla and SY Quraishi.

As many as 124 Lok Sabha constituencies would go to the polls on April 16 in the first phase, followed by 141 on April 23, 107 on April 30, 85 on May 7 and finally 86 on May 13. Significantly, this would be the first general election after the delimitation of the parliamentary constituencies.

Notably, most of the constituencies in north India — Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, western parts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand — would go to polls in the fourth or the fifth phase. In Punjab, polling would be held in two phases while in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh it would spread across five phases.

The poll schedule was announced a day after President Pratibha Patil rejected Gopalaswami’s controversial suggestion to sack Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla from the poll panel on grounds that he was “biased” towards the Congress. The CEC said the new Lok Sabha would be constituted by June 2.

Notably, this time there would be 4.3 crore more voters than 2004. At 71 crore, the strength of the Indian electorate is more than the combined population of Russia and the US.

More than 40 lakh civil officials and 21 lakh security personnel would be deployed across some 8.28 lakh polling stations, an increase of 20 per cent over 2004 when 6.87 lakh polling stations were set up. As many as 12,000 of the new polling stations have been set up in villages having less than 300 electors. The commission has also undertaken exercise of vulnerability mapping to identify areas where voters could face threat. A total of 13.68 lakh electronic voting machines would be used.

Among other states, Bihar would have four rounds of polling. Maharashtra and West Bengal would undergo polling over three phases. Apart from Punjab, seven more states, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur and Orissa, would witness voting in two rounds. All other states and union territories would go to the polls in one go.