9-phase LS polls from Apr 7; Odisha to vote on Apr 10, 17

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Mar 5, 2014 at 11:16 AM Updated On : Mar 5, 2014 at 2:59 PM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau

New Delhi, Mar 5:

Rajnath Singh tears into Channi over remarks on Poonch terror attack

9 Maoists including 2 women lay down arms before police in Odisha’s Boudh

The Election Commission of India (ECI) today announced a 9-phase schedule for the coming Lok Sabha elections in the country and Assembly elections in three states, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, including the regions comprising the newly carved out 29th state of Telangana and Sikkim.

The first phase of the polls will take place on April 7 and the last on May 12, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) VS Sampath announced here today.

The seven intervening polling dates are April 9, 10, 12, 17, 24, 30 and May 7, he added.

Counting of the votes will take place on a single day on May 16, Sampath said. The model code of conduct comes into effect from today, he said.

Odisha will go to polls in two phases – on April 10 and April 17.

In Odisha, the filing of nominations for the first phase polls would begin from March 15 to March 22.The scrutiny of the nomination papers would be on March 24 while the date of withdrawal of nomination papers would be within March 26. For the second phase polls in the state, the date of filing of nomination papers would begin from March 19 to March 26. The scrutiny of the nomination papers would be on March 27 while the date of withdrawal of nomination papers would be within March 29.

In the first phase, voting would be held for Bargarh, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Balangir, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Aska, Brahampur and Koraput Lok Sabha seats and the 70 Assembly constituencies coming under these 10 Lok Sabha elections on April 10.

The second phase polling on April 17 would be held for 11 Lok Sabha seats – Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Baleswar, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Bhubaneswar – and the 77 Assembly constituencies coming under them.

The CEC said there are 814 million eligible voters in the election this time.

The number of Indian voters has shot up from 176 million in the first general election held in 1952 to some 814 million in 2014,he added.

Sampath said the increase in the number of voters since the last Lok Sabha polls of 2009 was about 100 million.