Assembly elections in five states from April 9, results on May 4

EC announces April polling for five states and Puducherry, with Bengal voting in two phases and results scheduled for May 4

The Election Commission (EC) on Sunday announced the polling schedule for the Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. After over two decades, Bengal will see voting in just two phases; Assam, unlike previous polls, will have a single-phase election. 

Elections in Assam (126 seats), Kerala (140 seats) and Puducherry (30 seats) will be held on April 9; in Tamil Nadu (234 seats) on April 23; and in Bengal on April 23 for 152 Assembly constituencies in the first phase and on April 29 for 142 seats in the second phase. Votes will be counted for all polls on May 4, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar said. 

 

Bengal, known to witness some of the worst poll-related violence in India, had a one phase election back in 2001, but has since had voting spread across multiple phases. It had a five-phased polling in 2006, six phases each in 2011 and 2016, and eight phases in 2021. Assam, which had a three-phased election in 2021, usually has polling spread out across two phases, one each in Upper and Lower Assam. 

Of the four states and one Union Territory, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has governments only in Assam and Puducherry. According to the EC, a total of 174 million electors are eligible to vote in these elections, spread over 824 constituencies. 

Eighty minutes before the EC’s briefing in the national capital, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee approved the clearance of dearness allowance (DA) arrears of state government employees and increased the honorarium for purohits and muezzins. In Guwahati, Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated and laid the foundation stones for healthcare projects worth ₹2,092 crore, including the ₹675 crore Pragjyotishpur Medical College and Hospital. 

To questions about the announcements, Kumar said that these were made before the poll schedule was declared. The model code of conduct (MCC) comes into effect immediately with the declaring of the schedule and no such announcements can be made now. 

The current round of elections is the second after the EC launched the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls. Barring Assam, the EC conducted the exercise in the three other states and Puducherry. The EC conducted the special revision (SR) of electoral rolls in Assam. 

Kumar said the final list published in Bengal would be followed with supplementary lists of electors as per orders of the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing a case on the issue. 

The EC has also sought to “rationalise” polling stations and will be setting up new ones in highrise buildings, group housing societies, and resident welfare association (RWA) colonies that have common facilitation areas or community halls at ground floor within the premises, and also in slum dwelling clusters of urban areas. 

The EC will set up auxiliary polling stations for those ones where the elector strength exceeds 1,200 at the same location, wherever feasible. As a result, the number of polling stations has increased in Assam from 28,650 in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to 31,486 now, in Kerala from 25,231 to 30,471, in Tamil Nadu from 68,321 to 75,032, in Bengal from 80,530 to 80,719 and in Puducherry from 967 to 1,099. 

At the media briefing, Kumar sidestepped questions on the Opposition’s notice to move a motion in Parliament for his removal from the CEC post. 

Kumar said presiding officers at all polling booths will upload voter turnout data every two hours and immediately after voting ends. “The EC will ensure greater transparency in the counting of votes and announcement of results. It has asked all enforcement agencies to ensure elections are impartial and violence-free,” he said. Opposition parties have in the recent past questioned the EC on the voter turnout data.

 

Focus on youth

According to the EC’s data, the number of first-time voters (18-19 years) in Assam is 575,258; in Kerala 424,518; and it is the highest in Tamil Nadu with as many as 1,251,749 first-time voters. Additionally, there are 523,229 first-time voters in Bengal and 23,033 in Puducherry. 

In Assam, the number of young voters, that is those in the age group of 20 to 29 years, is 6.63 million. The number of young electors in Kerala is 4.5 million, and it is 187,000 in Puducherry; Tamil Nadu has a little over 10 million young voters. 

All political parties in these states have announced welfare schemes and promises of creating job opportunities for the youth. On Sunday, Shah addressed a ‘yuva shakti’ (youth power) event in Guwahati, where he said the state’s BJP government has given jobs to 165,000 youth, and highlighted the Centre’s efforts to set up a semiconductor factory in the state. Other ruling parties, such as the Trinamool Congress in Bengal, the Left Democratic Front in Kerala and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, have also announced measures to reach out to the youth.