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Amid the drama over the electoral bonds revelations and days after the sudden resignation of Arun Goel as the election commissioner, the Election Commission (EC) is set to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls today.
In a post on X, the EC said a press conference to announce the schedule for Lok Sabha elections and some state assemblies will be held at 3pm on Saturday. The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 16 and a new House has to be constituted before that. The term of the assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha is coming to an end on various dates in June.
Last time, the Lok Sabha polls were announced on March 10 and held in seven phases beginning April 11. Votes were counted on May 23.
Nearly 97 crore people are eligible to cast vote in the upcoming polls at over 12 lakh polling stations.
In the last parliamentary polls, the BJP had won 303 seats while the Congress got 52 seats. It could not muster enough numbers to claim the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Arun Goel's resignation
The recent revelations in the electoral bonds data provided by the SBI to the Supreme Court has been hogging the headlines, and has queered the pitch for the political parties ahead of the general elections exprected to be held in April-May.
ALSO READ: How Arun Goel's appointment as ECI in 2022 raised eyebrows
But, it was the resignation of Goel weeks ahead of the crucial polls that surprised everyone. Though Goel, reportedly, cited 'personal reasons' for his decision, there are specualtions that he quit because of his differences with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar on the conduct of the polls.
Former bureaucrats Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar were named the new election commissioners by a panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The second vacancy arose after the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey in February.
Both Kumar and Sandhu are 1988-batch officers of the Indian Administrative Service and belonged to the Kerala and Uttarakhand cadres, respectively. During his tenure in the home ministry, Kumar oversaw the abrogation of the Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Sandhu, a former chief secretary of Uttarakhand, is learnt to have overseen the ideation for the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code in the state.
The Supreme Court had prescribed a collegium system for the appointment of the CEC and ECs. The collegium was to comprise the prime minister, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. The government, however, brought in legislation as per which the selection committee would consist of a member of the Union cabinet nominated by the PM, instead of the CJI.
Interestingly, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is a member of the selection committee, had raised questions over the selection procedure of Sandhu and Kumar. He had said he had sought the names of the shortlisted candidates for the posts in the EC but was provided 212 names the night before the committee met. “Ten minutes before the appointment they again gave me just six names,” he said.
What the opinion polls say
The 2024 Lok Sabha polls are being seen as a do-or-die battle for the opposition INDIA bloc.
According to a News 18 opinion poll, the BJP-led NDA is headed for a "historic mandate" in the upcoming pols. The opinion poll claimed that the NDA is set to win 411 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha with the BJP alone clinching a record 350 seats.
According to an opinion poll survey by ABP-CVoter, the NDA is projected to secure a commanding lead with a vote share of 45.9 per cent and an estimated 366 seats in the Lok Sabha.
The INDIA bloc together, including the UPA, is expected to claim a 39 per cent vote share and 156 seats, according to the opinion poll.
It suggests a considerable swing in votes since the 2019 Lok Sabha results, with the BJP seeing a positive swing of 3.08 per cent, and the INDIA bloc (UPA in 2019) a rise of 2.5 per cent.
(With PTI inputs)
