16.63 crore voters to decide fate of contenders at 102 Lok Sabha seats in phase 1 elections tomorrow

April 18, 2024

New Delhi: India is all set for Lok Sabha elections with 28 states and eight Union Territories going to polls. The seven-phase Lok Sabha elections will begin on April 19.

Election Commission of India in a release said that a total of 16.63 crore voters are eligible to take part in the polls.

A total of 1.87 lakh polling stations have been set up, while 18 lakh personnel have been deployed.

“The Election Commission of India has made all preparations to welcome voters to the biggest festival of democracy that any nation has witnessed, the elections to the 18th Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies in four states that start off tomorrow with Phase 1,” the release said.

It has the highest number of parliamentary constituencies among all phases. Voting begins at 7 AM and ends at 6 PM (Closure of Poll timings may differ PC-wise), the poll body said.

Voters include 8.4 crore Males; 8.23 crore Females and 11,371 Third gender electors. There are 35.67 lakh first-time voters registered to cast their votes. Additionally, there are 3.51 crore young voters in the age group 20-29 years.

There are a total of 1625 candidates (Males – 1491; and Females-134) in the fray.

The poll body informed that there are 41 helicopters, 84 Special trains and nearly 1 lakh vehicles have been deployed to ferry polling and security personnel.

Webcasting will be done in more than 50 % of the polling stations along with the deployment of micro observers in all polling stations. 361 Observers (127 General Observers, 67 Police Observers, 167 Expenditure Observers) have already reached their Constituencies days
before the polls.