KICKING OFF THE world's largest election exercise, the Election Commission of India on Saturday announced that the 18th Lok Sabha elections would be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1, with counting of votes on June 4.
Close to a billion electors will be eligible to case their votes in the exercise that stretches for 81 days well into the peak of summer, with over 10 million polling and security personnel being deployed for the job. In 2019, elections were concluded in 75 days.
Addressing a press conference in the national capital, chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar, flanked by newlyappointed election commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and SS Sandhu, appealed to electors to come out and vote, saying "elections belong to you".
With the announcement, the model code of conduct came into force, bringing announcements of schemes by the government and use of government new machinery for electioneering by ministers to a halt.
The EC also announced the schedule for the Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim Assembly elections, where polling would be held on the same day as the Lok Sabha polling. The EC also announced bye-elections to 26 Assembly seats across states.
A total of 96.8 crore voters, of which 49.7 crore are male and 47.1 crore are female, including 88.4 lakh persons with disabilities, 48,000 transgender voters and 19.1 lakh service electors, will be eligible to cast their votes.
There are 1.8 crore first time voters who are 18 to 19 years old, and 19.74 crore in the age group 20-29 years. In other words, those under 30 make up a fifth of the total voters.
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