Uttar Pradesh elections to begin from April 7

New Delhi, Feb 21: The Election Commission (EC) today anoounced a seven-phase schedule for the elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative assembly, starting from April 7 and ending on May 8.

Counting for all the 403 constituencies will be taken up on May 11.

Addressing a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswamy said that the poll process for the UP assembly election will begin from March 13 with the issue of notification for the first phase of elections covering 62 assembly constituencies where the voters will cast their votes on April 7.

He said the notification for the second phase, covering 58 seats, will be issued on March 17 and the polling will take place on April 13.

For the third phase, involving 57 constituencies, the notification will be issued on March 23 and the poll will take place on April 18.

The notification for the fourth phase, covering a total of 57 constituencies, will be issued on March 28 and polling will take place on April 23.

Notification for the fifth phase, covering 58 seats, will be issued on April 3 and the polling will take place on April 28.

For the sixth phase, covering 52 seats, the notification will be issued on April 5 and the poll held on May 3.

The notification for the seventh and the last phase of elections, covering 59 seats, will be notified on April 13 and the polls will be for the same on May 8.

The counting for all the seven phase of polls will be taken up on may 11, Mr Gopalaswamy added.

The CEC further said that along with the UP assembly elections, the by-elections to fill up the vacancy of three Lok Sabha constituencies will also be held. These are Robertsganj (SC), Mirzapur and Bilhaury He said the polls to these three constituencies will be held as per the assembly election programmes announced for the constituencie coming under those areas.

The Model Code of Conduct will comes into effect from the date of election announcement and will be applicable to all candidates, political parties, the State Government and the Union Government, the CEC said.

He said the commission has issued special instruction for giving adequate protection cover to the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe electors so that no body could force them to cast their votes in favour of any particular candidates or threaten them not to cast their votes.

He said out of the total of 403 assembly constituencies, a total of 89 assembly constituencies were reserved for the SC candidates.

Mr Gopalaswamy said the term of the present UP assembly will comes to an end on May 14 and the elections to the UP assembly could be held any time six months ahead of that date. Responding to question on what was the hurry in the announcement of the UP assembly elections, the CEC said the clock started ticking from yesterday. ''In fact the commission is behind by 24 hours,'' he quipped.

He said that the production of the Electors Photo Identity cards (EPIC) will be mandatory for the identification of voters at the polling booth at the time of poll. Presently, in UP, EPIC coverage stands at 75.71 per cent. The commission has issued instructions to continue the campaign for increasing the EPIC coverage.

He said the election will be conducted in the State on the basis of the electoral rolls, revised with reference to January 1, 2007 as the qualifying date. The electoral roll revision process in the State has been completed and the final publications was made on January 15, 2007.

He said as per the final rolls, there are 11, 43, 44, 243 electors in the State. The commission had closely monitored the revision process by deputing 21 senior officers as observers to the State during the revision period. With one week one more team will be sent to UP. The electoral roll of all the assembly constituencies of the State have been computerised and are available on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer of UP.

The elections in the State will be conducted at all polling stations using the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). A total of 1.60 lakh EVM machines will be required for conducting this poll and the commission has made adequate arrangements for that, he added.

Mr Gopalaswamy said based on the assessment of ground situation, Central Para Military Forces (CPMF) and State Armed Police (SAP) drawn from other States will be deployed during the UP assembly elections. He said the CPMF and SAP will be used generally for safeguarding the polling stations and for providing security to the electors and polling personnel at the polling stations on poll day. Besides, these forces will be used for securing the strong rooms where the EVMs are stored and at the counting centres.

The Commission will be deploying one general observer for each of the assembly constituency and one expendenture observers for each district to ensure free and fair elections.

The CEC further disclosed that the commission had already given instructions that no election-related officials or police officer of the rank of Sub Inspector and above shall be allowed to continue in his or home town districts. Besides, instructions have also been issued that all the election-related officials, including police officials, who have completed three years in a district during last four years should be transferred out of that district.

He said in order to facilitate voting, the commission has decided to open auxiliary Polling Stations in the same building for booths, where the number of electors exceeds 1500 and provide additional polling personnel at polling stations where such auxiliary polling stations cannot be opened.

He said a total of 1.10 lakh polling stations will be set up in the State for the purpose of holding smooth, free and fair elections.

The commission has issued detailed guidelines for video coverage of all critical events during the election process and polling at sensitive/hypersensitive polling booths on the poll day. The digital cameras will also be deployed inside the polling booths wherever possible, he added.

Responding to volley of questions whether it will be a violation of the model code of conduct if President's rule is imposed in UP after the announcement of the poll schedule, Mr Gopalaswamy said as and when the situation will come, they will see.

UNI