The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday, 16 March announced the eagerly awaited schedule for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, along with the dates for Assembly elections in select states.
The voting will begin from April 19 and result will be declared on June 4, 2024, said ECI. The term of 17th Lok Sabha assembly will expire on June 16, 2024, said Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar.
Voting will be held in 7 phases starting from April 19. The results will be announced on June 4. The seven phases will cover 543 constituencies. With the announcement of election dates, the Model Code of Conduct comes into immediate effect.
Simultaneously, Assembly polls will also be held in four states— Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim, the results for which will be announced on June 4.
Here is the detailed schedule — Phase, state and constituency:
| Phases | Voting date | States |
| Phase 1 | April 19 | 21 |
| Phase 2 | April 26 | 13 |
| Phase 3 | May 7 | 12 |
| Phase 4 | May 13 | 10 |
| Phase 5 | May 20 | 8 |
| Phase 6 | May 25 | 7 |
| Phase 7 | June 1 | 8 |
Phase 1
The first phase of polling will be held on April 19, covering 102 parliamentary constituencies across 21 states.
Key dates for Phase 1 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | March 20 |
| Last date of filing nomination | March 27 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | March 28 |
| Polling date | April 19 |
| Result | June 4 |
Phase 2
The second phase of polling will be held on April 26, covering 89 parliamentary constituencies across 13 states.
Key dates for Phase 2 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | March 28 |
| Last date of filing nomination | April 4 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | April 5 |
| Polling date | April 26 |
| Result | June 4 |
Phase 3
The third phase of polling will be held on May 7, covering 94 parliamentary constituencies across 12 states.
Key dates for Phase 3 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | April 12 |
| Last date of filing nomination | April 19 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | April 20 |
| Polling date | May 7 |
| Result | June 4 |
Phase 4
The fourth phase of polling will be held on May 13, covering 96 parliamentary constituencies across 10 states.
Key dates for Phase 4 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | April 18 |
| Last date of filing nomination | April 25 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | April 26 |
| Polling date | May 13 |
| Result | June 4 |
Phase 5
The fifth phase of polling will be held on May 20, covering 49 parliamentary constituencies across eight states.
Key dates for Phase 5 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | April 26 |
| Last date of filing nomination | May 3 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | May 4 |
| Polling date | May 20 |
| Result | June 4 |
Phase 6
The sixth phase of polling will be held on May 25, covering 57 parliamentary constituencies across seven states.
Key dates for Phase 6 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | April 29 |
| Last date of filing nomination | May 6 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | May 7 |
| Polling date | May 25 |
| Result | June 4 |
Phase 7
The seventh phase of polling will be held on June 1, covering 57 parliamentary constituencies across eight states.
Key dates for Phase 7 of Lok Sabha elections 2024
| Date of notification | May 7 |
| Last date of filing nomination | May 14 |
| Scrutiny of nominations | May 15 |
| Polling date | June 1 |
| Result | June 4 |
Here are some of the other key highlights from the Election Commission’s press conference:
The Lok Sabha elections 2024 will involve 10.5 lakh polling stations and 1.5 crore poll officials. More than 55 lakh electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be used in the upcoming elections.
This time, 1.8 crore individuals are expected to cast their vote for the first time. Apart from this, there are 82 lakh voters above the age of 85 in the electoral rolls, 88.4 lakh persons with disabilities, and 19.1 lakh service electors. CEC Rajiv Kumar further noted that there are 948 female voters to every 1,000 male voters.
Some FAQs about the 2024 elections:
The Election Commission announced that 97 crore voters are eligible to vote in the Lok Sabha polls this year. This is an increase of 7 crore voters as compared to the electorate in the 2019 elections.
Over 1.8 crore voters are aged 18 years.
Of the eligible voters, 49.7 are male, 47.1 crore are female and 48,000 have enrolled as transgender.
88.4 lakh voters are persons with disabilities, and 19.1 lakh are service voters.
About 2019 Lok Sabha elections
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections were held in seven phases, between April 11 and May 19, involving nearly 90 crore voters, and the results were declared on May 23.
For the Lok Sabha polls, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal had the longest voting schedule across seven phases. This was followed by J&K in five phases; Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha in four; Assam and Chhattisgarh in three; and, Karnataka, Manipur, Rajasthan and Tripura in two. The remaining states went to poll in a single phase.
It was the first general election with 100 per deployment of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) units. A VVPAT produces a printout of the vote cast using an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), which can be shown to the voter to dispel doubts.
