Lok Sabha, four Assembly election schedule to be announced today

The commisssion will hold a press conference at 5 pm Sunday. The schedule of Assembly election to four States also will be announced alongwith. These States are Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats), Sikkim (32 seats), Odisha (147 seats) and Andhra Pradesh (175 seats). There was no decision yet on Jammu and Kashmir elections.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioners Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra will hold the press conference at Vigyan Bhavan.

The Model Code of Conduct will come into force with the announcement. Reports are that the Lok Sabha election is expected to begin on April 10 and end on May 15.

The term of the 16th Lok Sabha ends on June 3. The last elections were held in 2004 and the notification was issued on March 5. The elections were over by May 16 and the new members were sworn on June 4.

In 2014, the BJP got 282 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha. The majority mark is 272. Its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alliance won 336 seats. The Congress got only 44 seats.