EC to announce schedule of Lok Sabha elections today
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India will announce the schedule for the general elections to Lok Sabha and some State Legislative Assemblies 2024 here on Saturday.
The announcement will be made during a press conference at Vigyan Bhawan in the afternoon, according to a press release by the Election Commission of India on Friday.
With the announcement of the schedule for the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Model Code of Conduct will come into force which stipulates a set of guidelines for the political parties, candidates and the government. The code also touches upon announcements, election manifestos and general conduct.
The general election schedule will come a day after the two new Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar, both former bureaucrats, assumed charge of their offices. The three-member poll body had two vacancies as the Election Commissioner Arun Goel had suddenly resigned earlier this month and another one Anup Pandey had completed his term last month.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the poll schedule was announced on March 10 and voting was held in seven phases beginning April 11. Counting of votes was taken up on May 23.
This time around, according to the Election Commission about 96.88 crore people have been registered as electors. Nearly two crore young electors in the age group of 18 to 29 years have seen their names added to the voters’ list, the Commission had said.
In the last Parliamentary polls, the BJP had won 303 seats while the Congress got 52 seats. It could not muster enough numbers to claim the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
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.
with agency inputs
