India announces Lok Sabha elections for 2009

March 3, 2009

India, the world’s largest democracy, will go to polls in 5 phases to elect the 15th Lok Sabha (lower house) of the Parliament of India. The polls will take place on April 16, April 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13. This was announced by the Chief Election Commissioner of India N. Gopalaswami at New Delhi.

The counting will take place on May 16th and the results will be available immediately. All poll related processes would end by May 28th. A total of 714 million voters are expected to cast their ballots to elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha.

There will be a total of 828,000 voting stations using 1.1 million electronic voting machines across the country. Four million civil staff and 2.1 million security personnel will assist the entire election process. Some states will also go to polls with the parliament elections. Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa will elect their state representatives simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls.

"Nearly 40 lakh civil personnel and 21 lakh police personnel will be used for elections," said N Gopalaswami. A lakh is equal to 100,000.