Bracing for the big exercise, the Election Commission is all set to hold Lok Sabha elections starting mid-April and spread it over at least five phases till early May.
The much-awaited announcement for the polls is likely to be made by the end of February or early March, for which work has already begun, top Commission sources said.
Along with the Lok Sabha polls, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim will go to polls to elect their new Assemblies.
“The announcement of the poll schedule would be done in the last few days of February or at best the first two-three days of March,” the sources told PTI.
Before the scheduled announcement, the Lok Sabha may meet to pass a vote-on-account budget to meet the expenditure for six months of the new fiscal year 2014-15 till the new Government presents a full-fledged Budget in next Parliament.
Anti-corruption measures
There is also speculation that a special session of Parliament may be convened shortly to pass anti-corruption measures by the government in the run-up to the elections.
The term of the current Lok Sabha expires on June 1 and the new House has to be constituted by May 31.
The Commission is looking into the issue of whether to spread the elections over five phases or may be one more phase.
An estimated 80 crore voters will be eligible to vote in the coming elections after new voters have been added to the rolls, whose final revision is underway.
Electoral rolls list
The Commission has already got the electoral rolls ready, except for some “health check-ups” to be made so that they are out before the end of this month, they said.
“We already have a list of electoral rolls. We need to update it. We expect that before January end, the lists will be ready,” a top EC official said.
About 1.1 crore poll personnel, half-of-them being security forces will be deployed for the smooth conduct of polls and to ensure that they are free and fair.
Other work in the run-up to the announcement of the poll schedule is in full swing.
Security forces
Dates are being considered for a meeting with the Union Home Secretary for finalising the deployment plans of central paramilitary forces before the announcement of the poll schedule.
Chief Electoral Officers of various states are also holding separate meetings with the DGPs of states for availability of state police forces for the polls.
“There will be a final meeting of the Commission with the Union Home Secretary for securing the availability of security forces for poll duty,” the sources said.
Poll officials said that the database of the civilian staff to be deployed for conducting the polls is also being prepared and at least 5.5 million civilian staff would be required.
The list of central government employees to be deployed for poll duty as micro-observers at sensitive polling stations is also being prepared and final touches are being given to the list.
Polling stations
The EC is also working on finalising the polling stations for elections. At least 8 lakh polling stations are to be set up for polling across the country.
The poll body is working out last-minute changes in the polling stations for the convenience of both voters and poll staff.
Preparations for the deployment of around 12 lakh electronic voting machines are also being made and the Commission is likely to get another 2.5 lakh new EVMs by mid-February which it had ordered with various public sector companies.
The last Lok Sabha polls were held in five phases from April 16 to May 13 and the counting of votes was done on May 16, 2009. The announcement for the last Lok sabha polls was done on March 2, 2009.
During the 2009 polls, there were 714 million voters against 671 million voters in 2004 Lok Sabha polls.
Top poll officials justified multi-phased polls, saying some states are to be accorded special treatment due to their being extremist-affected like Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh, besides others.
The EC sources said the Commission has not conducted any election in a single go in one phase after 1971 as the size of the electorate in the world’s largest democracy has grown considerably over the years.