The elections to the 16th Lok Sabha, spread over nine phases, will begin from 7th April and will continue till 12th May. The counting will be held on 16th May. Announcing the poll schedule, the Chief Election Commissioner, CEC, V.S.Sampath said that the Assembly elections in Sikkim, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh will be held simultaneously with Lok Sabha polls.
Mr. Sampath said that voters enrolment has already been updated and about 81.4 crore voters have enrolled their names in the list so far. CEC said that approximately nine lakh, thirty thousand Polling Stations across the country, will be set up for voting in 543 Lok Sabha Constituencies on nine polling days.
The Chief Election Commissioner said that Model Code of Conduct has come into force with immediate effect.
He said, for the first time in the Lok Sabha elections, the Commission will deploy Central Awareness Observers to oversee the effective management of the electoral process at the field level, mainly in respect of voter awareness and facilitation. The CEC also said that “None Of The Above” or NOTA option will be used for the first time in these Lok Sabha polls.
Regarding the checking of illegal money flow, he said that Expenditure Observers from Central Government Services would be appointed to keep a close watch on election expenditure of the candidates and to ensure that no inducement is offered to the electors during the election process for exercise of their franchise.
In addition, the Election Commission will deploy Flying Squads, Static Surveillance Teams, Accounting Teams and Video Surveillance Teams to curb the money menace.
The CEC added that to facilitate the voters, to know where he or she is enrolled as a voter and the serial number in the Electoral Roll, the Commission has made arrangements for the distribution of photo voter slips. Voter verifiable paper audit trial, VVPAT system will be put into use in the election in some of the constituencies.
Under the system, voters will be able to know whether their votes have been properly registered in EVMs with the help of printed slips. Presently, the Commission has 600 VVPAT units and another 20,000 units are likely to be received by the end of this month.
