Lok Sabha polls in five phases

Lok Sabha polls will be held in five phases from April 16 to May 13, the Election Commission announced on Monday. The five phased polls will be held in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh while Bihar will have four-phased elections, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami told a press conference here. 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. Remaining 15 states and seven union territories will have one-day polling. The counting of votes will take place on May 16 and the 15th Lok Sabha will be constituted by June 2. In the first phase, 124 constituencies will go to polls on April 16. 141 constituencies will witness balloting in the second phase on April 23, 107 seats in the third phase on April 30, 85 seats in fourth phase on May 7 and 86 constituencies in the last phase on May 13. Elections to assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls. Photo electoral rolls will be used for the first time in 522 out of the 543 constituencies, Gopalaswami said. As many as 499 constituencies have been redrawn in the delimitation exercise. Delimitation could not be undertaken in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland, Gopalaswami said. At least 71.4 crore will be the number of eligible voters, an increase of 4.3 crore over the 2004 figure of 67.1 crore. The Commission will be using around 11 lakh electronic voting machines for the exercise to be held in eight lakh polling stations. Around 40 lakh civil staff and 21 lakh security personnel will be deployed for the smooth conduct of elections, Gopalaswami said. The dates were finalised taking into account aspects like school board examinations, local holidays, festivals and harvest, said Gopalaswami, who was flanked by Election Commissioners Naveen Chawla, whose removal he had sought for alleged "misconduct", and M Y Qureishi. On government's advice, President Pratibha Patil rejected the CEC's recommendation paving the way for Chawla to become the next head of the poll panel. Gopalaswami retires on April 20. The poll schedule was worked out after series of meetings with political parties, Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police and Railway Board officials starting from February 3, the CEC said.

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