Anubhi Saxena
On Saturday, the Election Commission expelled political parties from releasing election manifestos in the last 48 hours before polling. The commission has now made the relieve of election manifestos a part of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), which is a set of rules to be followed by parties after elections are declared.
Lok Sabha election 2019: Final dates for the Lok Sabha elections 2019 are declared by the Election Commission of India during a press conference at 5PM on Sunday. The General Elections 2019 will be conducted in seven phases in April-May, beginning from April 11. The elections will be held for 543 seats on nearly 10 lakh polling booths across the country, while the counting of votes will take place on May 23.
At the press conference, CEC Sunil Arora said that nearly 90 crore people are registered as voters, of which 1.5 crore voters in the age of 18 and 19. The current Lok Sabha’s tenure ends on June 3.
PM Modi was criticised by the former chief minister of the State of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah for not handling national security properly.
EC had suggested that parties be banned from releasing manifesto in the last 72 hours before polling. Congress had opposed the proposal in spite of silence of many parties. In the 7-phase Lok Sabha elections, parties cannot release manifesto in the last 48 hours before each phase on April 11, 18, 23, 29, May 6, 12 & May 19.
A demand to change the Election dates for the Lok Sabha elections was stated by Samajwadi Party chief and former CM of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav. Kashmir leaders made mockery of Centre for not declaring state elections in J&K in parallel with Lok Sabha elections.
