EC meeting with political leaders on LS polls

The Election Commission is today meeting with political leaders to invite their suggestions on the Lok Sabha polls likely to be held sometime in April-May.

In all 47 political parties including seven national parties have been invited for the meeting being chaired by Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and other two Election Commissioners Navin Chawla and S Y Quraishi.

This is the first time that all the three Election Commissioners would sit together to chalk out strategy for the Lok Sabha polls after the stand-off between Gopalaswami and Chawla and the report about the former seeking removal of the latter came out in public.

The EC will have a day-long review meeting with the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of all states and Union Territories tomorrow to review progress in revision of electoral rolls, the status of photo electoral rolls and distribution of Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC).

The Commission would hold discussions with Chief Secretaries and Directors General of Police of all states and Union Territories for two days from February five.

The meeting would also discuss an "advanced preparatory measure" for the massive democratic exercise.

The electoral rolls, the first and foremost requirement for conducting the elections, are ready in all the states as of January 22, except in six states and Jammu and Kashmir which went to assembly polls recently. The rolls in these seven states would be ready by February 10.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of reports quoting Quraishi that the Lok Sabha polls could be held between April 8 and May 15. However, the EC made it clear that no date has been finalised so far. The new Lok Sabha needs to be constituted by May 31.

The Lok Sabha elections in the country are the largest electoral exercise in the world involving 671 million voters.