India election schedule set to be declared today

The dates for India's high-octane parliamentary elections in April and May are set to be declared at 5:00pm Indian time today by the Election Commission, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

The poll panel will be holding a press conference at 5:00pm at Vigyan Bhavan in India.

The required number of electronic voting machines and voter verified paper trail machines are in place to be deployed in nearly one million polling stations across 543 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The coming elections may be spread across seven to eight phases. In the previous parliamentary polls in 2014, the EC had announced the election schedule on March 5 and the nine-phase electoral exercise was spread across April and May.

While the first phase polling was on April 7, the last phase was on May 12.

The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 3, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

As soon as the elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his bid for a second consecutive tenure in power, are announced, the model code of conduct will come into force barring the government from announcing policy decisions. 

There is a strong possibility that the EC may announce assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh states along with the Lok Sabha polls. 

Since the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has been dissolved, the EC is bound to hold fresh polls there as well within a six-month period, which will end in May.

While there is a view that the J-K assembly elections can be held along with the Lok Sabha polls, much will depend on the security situation in the terror-hit state given the heightened tension along the India-Pakistan border.