Elections from Apr 16 to May 13

NEW DELHI: India, the world���s largest democracy with 714 million voters, will elect its representatives over five phases between April 16 and May 13. The counting will be held on May 16, the Election Commission (EC) announced on Monday.

The mammoth exercise will deploy over 40 lakh civil officials and nearly 21 lakh security personnel, including 75,000 paramilitary personnel.

Chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami, flanked by election commissioners Naveen Chawla and SY Quraishi, said 124 Lok Sabha constituencies will go to the polls on April 16, followed by 141 on April 23, 107 on April 30, 85 on May 7 and 86 on May 13.

With Monday���s announcement, the model code of conduct has come into force, shutting the government exchequer.
While 15 states and all Union territories will have a single-day poll, the remaining 13 states will hold elections in multiple phases. Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh will hold polls in five phases and Bihar in four phases. While Maharashtra and West Bengal will have polls in three phases, voting in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Orissa and Punjab will be done in two phases.

The EC will also hold simultaneous assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim as the terms of their assemblies expire on May 30, May 29 and May 23 respectively. Parliamentary and state elections have been scheduled so as to complete the process well ahead of May 23, the last date for the current Sikkim assembly.

While elections in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa will be held in two phases on April 15 and April 23, Sikkim will have a one-day poll on April 30. Incidentally, this is the first parliamentary election to be held after the the Delimitation Commission redrew constituencies.

Delimitation has been completed in all states except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland. Thus, the election for 499 of 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held on the basis of delimited constituencies; the five UTs do not require the exercise.

Delimitation has also pushed up the number of scheduled caste seats in Parliament to 85 from 79 and scheduled tribe seats to 47 from 41.

The number of polling stations has also been increased significantly, from 6,87,402 in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls to 8,28,804 now. The large rise is on account of rationalisation of polling stations, resulting in an addition of 12,901 polling stations for villages with under 300 electors to address concerns of threat and intimidation.

The 2009 polls will be the first photo electoral rolls-based parliamentary election, with 522 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies using this method. Photo electoral rolls will also be used in the assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa.