NEW DELHI/GUWAHATI, March 16: The seven-phase Lok Sabha polls, the world’s biggest election exercise, will kick off on April 19 with the counting of votes set to take place on June 4 even as the state is set for three-phase voting for 14 Lok Sabha seats.
Announcing the election schedule on Saturday, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said over 97 crore voters – 49.7 crore males and 47.1 crore females – were eligible to cast their vote in the polling process spread over 44 days and across 10.5 lakh polling booths.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1, Kumar said at a press conference.
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In the previous general elections in 2019, there were a total of 91.2 crore eligible voters of which 61.5 crore — 67.4 per cent — turned out to exercise their franchise.
Kumar said the aim was to improve the voting percentage in this election and better the record of holding peaceful and fair elections with near-zero repolls.
The Election Commission is pulling out all stops to increase voter turnout and has plans to reach out to voters over the age of 85 years at their homes to help them cast their votes. Similar facilities will be available to persons with more than 40 per cent disabilities.
The model code of conduct has come into effect with the announcement of the elections.
Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim will be held on April 19, and in Andhra Pradesh on May 13. Elections to Odisha assembly will be held in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
The CEC said the poll authority is prepared to counter the challenges of four ‘M’s – muscle power, money power, misinformation and Model Code of Conduct violations.
Nearly 1.5 crore personnel including those on election and security duties will be deployed for the smooth conduct of polls.
Drone-based checking at borders, surveillance of non-chartered flights, a crackdown on misleading advertisements and fake news, and “ruthless” action against poll violence are part of the EC’s strategy to deal with the four challenges.
Meanwhile, polls for the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam will be held in three phases just after Rongali Bihu beginning on April 19, according to the poll schedule announced on Saturday.
Five constituencies each will go to polls on April 19 and 26, while voting for four seats will take place on May 7.
In the first phase, Kaziranga, Sonitpur, Lakhimpur, Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur will be held on April 19. Voters of Darrang-Udalguri, Diphu (ST), Karimganj, Silchar (SC) and Nagaon will exercise their franchise in the second phase.
In the third and final phase on May 7, polling will be held in Kokrajhar (ST), Dhubri, Barpeta and Guwahati constituencies, according to the schedule announced by the ECI.
The notification for the first phase will be issued on March 20, and the last date for filing nominations is March 27. The scrutiny of nominations will be on March 28 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is March 30.
In the second phase, notification will be issued on March 28, the last date for filing nominations is April 4, scrutiny on April 5 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is April 8.
In the third phase, notification will be issued on April 12, the last date for filing of nominations is April 19, scrutiny on April 20 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature will be April 24.
In the outgoing Lok Sabha, the BJP has nine seats, Congress three and AIUDF one, while there is one independent legislator from Assam
Soon after the Election Commission announced the Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a series of posts on X, highlighted the “glorious turnaround” India has seen in the 10 years of his government and said the ruling alliance will go to people based on its track record of good governance and service delivery across sectors.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said the Lok Sabha elections were “perhaps the last chance to save democracy and our Constitution from dictatorship”. (PTI)
