Over 18.68 crore people will cast votes between March 27 and April 29 to elect 824 members of the legislative assemblies in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam and Puducherry.
The votes will be counted in all the four states as well as the Union Territory of Puducherry on May 2.
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora along with other Election Commissioners, Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar, announced the schedule of polling in a news-conference at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Friday.
The polling in Assam will take place in three phases on March 27, April 1 and April 6. All assembly constituencies in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will go to polls on April 6.
The polling in West Bengal will take place in eight phases on March 27, April 1, April 6, April 10, April 17, April 22, April 26 and April 29.
The Model Code of Conduct came into force in the four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry as soon as the poll-schedule was announced by the EC.
The assembly polls in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam and Puducherry are going to be the second set of direct elections to be held after the Covid-19 pandemic swept the country. The assembly election in Bihar in October and November 2020 was the first.
The Chief Election Commissioner said that the polling in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry would be held in accordance with the broad guidelines issued by the EC on August 21 last year for holding polls at the time of the pandemic.
The commission, however, left it to the Chief Electoral Officers in the poll-bound states to frame specific plans for holding elections amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic, based on the broad guidelines issued by it.
The legislative assemblies of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have 126, 294, 234 and 140 seats respectively. The legislative assembly of the Union Territory of Puducherry has 33 seats – 30 elected by people and three nominated by the Centre.
The poll-panel will set up altogether 2.7 lakh polling stations in the four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry.
The Chief Election Commissioner said that adequate central paramilitary forces would be deployed during the forthcoming assembly elections, particularly in the critical and vulnerable polling stations.