Published on Mon, Mar 02, 2009 at 15:51 , Updated on Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 01:04 in Politics section
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New Delhi: The Election commission on Monday announced dates for the 15th Lok Sabha elections , which will be held in five phases from April 16 to May 13.
The voting dates are April 16, April 22, April 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13 while counting will be held on May 16.
Announcing the dates Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said that though the voting will take place on six days, it will be counted as a five-phase election as voting in Manipur will take place on April 22 due to a local holiday on April 23.
Gopalaswami said that 124 constituencies would vote on April 16, followed by 141 on April 23, 107 on April 30, 85 on May 7 and 86 on May 13.
Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh will vote in five phases, Bihar will have four-phase elections while Maharashtra and West Bengal will vote in three phases.
Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Punjab will hold the elections in two phases. Fifteen states and seven Union Territories will go in for one-phase voting.
All election related procedures will be completed before May 28.
The dates were announced after the three-member Election Commission met under the chairmanship of Gopalaswami in New Delhi on Monday.
The model code of conduct also comes into effect immediately.
“Nearly 40 lakh civil personnel and 21 lakh police personnel will be used for elections” said N Gopalaswami.
The delimitation of parliamentary constituencies is over except for Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur, Assam and Nagaland. Out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats, 499 have been redrawn following the delimitation.
There are a total of 71.40 crore voters with 4.30 crore of them will be eligible to vote for the first time and for the first time photo electoral rolls will be used in 522 out of the 543 constituencies.
There will be 8,28,804 polling stations for the General Elections and the Election Commission will be using around 11 lakh electronic voting machines.
The dates were finalised taking into account aspects like school board examinations, local holidays, festivals, harvest and after series of meetings with political parties, Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police and Railway Board officials starting from February 3, said Gopalaswami, who was flanked by Election Commissioners Navin Chawla and SY Qureshi.
The term of the 14th Lok Sabha ends on June 1, 2009 so the new Lok Sabha will have to be constituted by then.
Gopalaswami's term ends on April 20, 2009, which means a major part of the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha will be held under Chawla's supervision.
Elections to state Assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls.
India, the world’s largest democracy, will go to polls in 5 phases to elect the 15th Lok Sabha (lower house) of the Parliament of India. The polls will take place on April 16, April 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13. This was announced by the Chief Election Commissioner of India N. Gopalaswami at New Delhi.

The counting will take place on May 16th and the results will be available immediately.  All poll related processes would end by May 28th.  A total of 714 million voters are expected to cast their ballots to elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha. 

There will be a total of 828,000 voting stations using 1.1 million electronic voting machines across the country. Four million civil staff and 2.1 million security personnel will assist the entire election process. Some states will also go to polls with the parliament elections. Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa will elect their state representatives simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls.

"Nearly 40 lakh civil personnel and 21 lakh police personnel will be used for elections," said N Gopalaswami. A lakh is equal to 100,000.