Watch Lok sabha Elections Process on line Starts 16th Apr 2009

Watch Lok sabha Elections Process on line Starts 16th Apr 2009

The Lok Sabha - External website that opens in a new window is the lower house of the Parliament in India. It consists of representatives of the people selected by direct election based on universal adult suffrage. As of now, the Lok Sabha consists of 545 members of which two are nominated by the President from the Anglo Indian community. The number of representatives to be elected from each State depends on the population of that State, such that the ratio of seats to the population is the same, as far as possible for each State.

The General Elections are held once every five years after the term of the standing Lok Sabha expires, unless the lower house was dissolved earlier by the President. At this year's General Election, voting will be held for a total of 543 Lok Sabha seats - External website that opens in a new window, out of which 499 are newly delimited constituencies. A total of 84 parliamentary constituencies (32.9 KB) (PDF file that opens in a new window) are reserved for Scheduled Castes while 47 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

Here are some details of the Election Schedule (410 KB) (PDF file that opens in a new window) and a map showing constituency wise phases (1.34 MB) (PDF file that opens in a new window) of the election. The large population of India means that elections need to be held in phases. The phases of elections to the 15th Lok Sabha Elections are as follows -

• Phase 1 - 16th April 2009 Thursday
• Phase 2 - 23rd April 2009, Thursday
• Phase 3 - 30th April 2009, Thursday
• Phase 4 - 7th May 2009, Thursday
• Phase 5 - 13th May 2009, Wednesday