Making the much awaited announcement, Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami said that 124 Lok Sabha constituencies would go to the polls April 16, followed by 141 on April 23, 107 on April 30, 85 on May 7 and 86 constituencies on the final day on May 13.
The millions of votes cast in the mammoth exercise covering the length and breadth of the world’s seventh largest country would be counted May 16.
Gopalaswami said elections to the Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim assemblies would also take place along with the Lok Sabha battle. Assembly by-elections would also be held in Mizoram, Jharkhand and Karnataka (one seat each) and Nagaland (four seats).
The strength of the Indian electorate, more than the combined population of Russia and the US, has gone up by 43 million in 2004 to 714 million now, Gopalaswami said.
A total of 1.36 million electronic voting machines would be used.
Troubled Jammu and Kashmir as well as Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, would see polling spread over five phases while Bihar would have four rounds of balloting.
Maharashtra and West Bengal would undergo polling over three phases. Eight states — Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Orissa and Punjab — would witness voting over two phases.
Fifteen states would end the exercise within a day.
This would be the first general election after the delimitation of the Lok Sabha constituencies. 499 constituencies have been redrawn in the delimitation exercise. Delimitation could not be undertaken in Andhra, Assam, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland.
Photo electoral rolls would be used in 522 of the 543 constituencies where polling would take place. In a house of 545, the president appoints two members of the Anglo-Indian community.
To ensure that polling is by and large peaceful, security arrangements will entail deployment of 40 lakh civil personnel and 21 lakh police personnel.
Following is the schedlue
Apr 16 : AP, Arunachal, Assam. Bihar, J&K, Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, UP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andaman, Lakshadweep (Total 124 seats)
Apr 23 : AP, Assam, Bihar, Goa, J&K, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Orissa, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand (Total 141 seats)
Apr 30 : Bihar, Gujarat, J&K, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, UP, West Bengal, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu (Total 107 seats)
May 07 : Bihar, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi (Total 85 seats)
May 13 : Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry (Total 86 seats)
Counting of Votes : May 16, 09
15th Lok Sabha to convene before: Jun 02, 09
The ruling UPA is expected to have a significant edge in the coming Lok Sabha elections with the Congress projected to remain the single largest party like in 2004 with a 144 seat haul in a likely hung Parliament, according to a poll survey.
The Week/C Voter election survey gives the Congress-led UPA 234 seats if the seats bagged by Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi party, Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party are also taken to account though the Congress does not have any seat sharing arrangement with these parties. The Congress had 145 members in the outgoing House.
The survey said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is projected to get 186, way behind the UPA with BJP expected to get 140 seats, two less than in 2004.
The magic figure for a majority is 272. The survey projected that the prospect for the Third Front is weak with the predicted number of 112 seats including those expected to be bagged by AIADMK not being big enough to woo other regional parties.
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