The polling for electing a new Union government and the next Lok Sabha would be held between April 16 and May 13, Chief Election Commissioner, N Gopalaswami, announced here today. Counting will be held on 16 May. By the morning of 17 May, a new Lok Sabha – India’s 15th – will have taken shape.
The election will be a five-phase exercise spread over a month with majority of the states -15 – and seven union territories – seeing one-day polling and Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh seeing the most staggered exercise in five-phases.

Announcing the much-awaited schedule for election of 543 members of Lok Sabha by about 714 million people across the country Gopalaswami reminded politicians, officials and governments that the moral code of conduct had come into immediate effect. He said that Commission had noted in the past illegal use of money-power in the election and would take steps to curb the same.

The Commission has also announced Legislative Assembly election in Orissa, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh, where the term of lower Houses is coming to end this year. The Lok Sabha and Assembly poll would be held simultaneously in these states. Thus the voters of these states will cast their votes twice on the same day. They will caste one vote for an MP and one for the MLA.

All the candidates will be required to file two affidavits along with their nomination papers. The affidavits will include information on the criminal antecedents of the candidate, assets (including the moveable and immoveable properties of the candidate, spouse and dependents), liabilities of the candidate and his/her educational qualifications. Nomination papers will not be accepted unless accompanied by these affidavits. As before, candidates will be required to maintain a daily account of expenditure.. A cell comprising of experts drawn from Income Tax Department will also be set up in the Commission to deal with information on poll expenses of the candidates, Gopalaswami said.

As per the latest electoral rolls published by the Election Commission, India has registered an increase of 43 million voters over 2004 election.

Another unique feature of the election this time would be that of the 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies which would go to the poll, across the country, the maps of 499 have been re-drawn due to Delimitation of the Constituencies. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland would see election on the basis of same territorial profile of the constituencies.

According to Gopalaswami, some 8,28,804 polling stations would be set up across the country as compared to 6,87,402 in the last Election. The increase of 1,41,402 polling stations was due to Commission’s instructions that any habitation with 300 voters should get a booth.

Besides, the Commission had drawn ”vulnerability map’’ of the country to identify the small hamlets and villagers, which had been subjected to intimidation in the past. The Commission has ordered booths for these places even when voters are less than 300.

Again, in the first ever such move, out of 543 Parliamentary Constituencies, photo electoral rolls will be used in 522 Constituencies as well as in all the Assembly Constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa. Gopalaswami said photographs of some 82 per cent of voters across the country had been printed on the electoral roll. This means it would be well nigh impossible to impersonate voters, once, a common practice in Indian elections.

Going fully digital, the Election Commission will deploy 11,000 of the its 13, 68,430 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for the polling this election Gopalaswami said

Goplalaswami, who is retiring on April 20, was flanked by election Commissioner Navin Chawla and S Y Quraishi.

source: Business-Standard

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