Election Commission announces five-phase Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi, Mar 2 (ANI): The Election Commission of India announced the dates for the 15th Lok Sabha election on Monday.

Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami, and Election Commissioners Naveen Chawla and SY Quraishi announced the poll dates at a press conference here this afternoon.

The elections will be held in five phases on April 16, 23, 30, May 7 and 13, they said, adding that the new government will take office on June 2.

Five phased polls will be held in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh, while Bihar will have a four-phased election.

Maharashtra and West Bengal will witness three phased polls while Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Punjab will have elections in two phases.

The remaining 15 states and seven Union Territories will have one-day polling.

The first phase of polling will take place on April 16 in 124 constituencies. The second phase of polling will be held on April 23 in 141 constituencies. In this phase, one constituency in Manipur will go to poll on April 22 due to a local holiday.

The third and fourth phase of polling will take place on April 30 and May 7 in 107 and 85 respectively.

The fifth and final phase of polling will be held on May 13 in 86 constituencies.ounting of votes will take place on May 16.

The Election Commission said that the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies is over except in Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur, Assam and Nagaland. It also said that the Model Code of Conduct comes into effect immediately.

Around 40 lakh civil personnel and 21 lakh police personnel would be pressed into service during the polls, the Election Commission said.

Out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats up for grab, 499 have been redrawn following the delimitation exercise.

There are a total of 71.40 crore voters, of which 4.30 crore are eligible to vote for the first time.

There will be 8,28,804 polling stations for the general elections.

The term of the 14th Lok Sabha ends on June 1, 2009, therefore the new Lok Sabha will have to be constituted by then. (ANI)