EC to announce poll schedule today
Immediately after the announcement, the EC's Model Code of Conduct will come into force across the country
New Delhi: The Election Commission will on Saturday announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in four states as the term of the Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha Assemblies comes to an end in June. The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 16.
Immediately after the announcement, the EC’s Model Code of Conduct will come into force across the country.
In 2019, the Lok Sabha polls were announced on March 10 and the elections were held in seven phases beginning from April 11. Votes were counted on May 23. Nearly 97 crore people are eligible to cast their vote in the upcoming polls at over 12 lakh polling stations. In the 2019 parliamentary elections, the BJP had won 303 seats while the Congress got 52 seats.
The full commission, comprising chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar, and the two new election commissioners, Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, who took charge on Friday, will announce the election schedule. The Prime Minister-led committee picked the two new ECs on Thursday. The duo are the first ones to have been appointed as members of the EC after the new law on the appointment of chief election commissioner and ECs came into force recently.
Welcoming them, CEC Rajiv Kumar spoke about the significance of their joining at a historic point when the Election Commission is all set to conduct the Lok Sabha elections, the EC spokesperson said.
In a post on X, the poll panel said a press conference to announce the schedule for Lok Sabha elections and some state Assemblies will be held at 3 pm on Saturday.
The 2024 parliamentary polls are being seen as a do or die battle for the Opposition INDIA bloc. According to a News 18 opinion poll, the BJP-led NDA is headed for a “historic mandate” in the upcoming polls.
The opinion poll claimed that the NDA is set to win 411 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, with the BJP alone clinching a record 350 seats. According to an opinion poll survey by ABP-CVoter, the INDIA bloc is likely to get only six seats in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.