General elections 2024 will be held in seven phases, beginning April 19.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar on Saturday announced the dates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The polls will begin from April 19 and end on June 1. The results will be declared on June 4. No simultaneous polls will be held, the CEC said.
The assembly polls for Andhra Pradesh will be on May 13, Sikkim on April 19, Arunachal Pradesh on April 19, and Odisha will be held on May 13. In a press conference in New Delhi, the Election Commission said it was working towards combating the 4Ms (muscle, money, misinformation, and MCC violations) that hinder the path to free and fair elections.
Around 97 crore people are eligible to vote in the upcoming polls, of which 1.8 crore are first-time voters. CEC Kumar said voters older than 85 years of age would be allowed to vote from home. He also said that minimum basic facilities like drinking water and toilets would be made available at all polling booths.
On being asked why the polls were planned in seven phases over six weeks, the CEC said it was done so keeping in view geographic conditions, festivals, exams, and various other factors.
The tenure of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 16 and a new House will have to be constituted before that. The tenure of the four state assemblies will also end in June.
In the last parliamentary polls, the BJP, seeking a third consecutive term this time, won 303 seats, while the Congress got 52 seats. The upcoming polls are extremely crucial for the Opposition bloc INDIA, fighting to stop the BJP’s run.
As the Election Commission announced the dates of the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on ‘X’: “The biggest festival of democracy is here! EC has announced the 2024 Lok Sabha election dates. We, the BJP-NDA, are fully prepared for elections. We are going to the people on the basis of our track record of good governance and service delivery across sectors.”
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