NEW DELHI, October 15 — The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday formally announced the schedule and phased polling roadmap for the upcoming General Elections to State Legislative Assemblies during a national press briefing held at Rang Bhawan, New Delhi.
Chief Election Commissioner, accompanied by the Election Commissioners, confirmed that voting across constituent assembly segments will be conducted across two distinct phases in late November, with centralized electronic counting of ballots scheduled for the first week of December. With the formal declaration, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into immediate operational force across all participating jurisdictions.
The Commission reaffirmed that electronic voting machines (EVMs) coupled with 100 percent Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units will be deployed at all polling stations. In addition, the postal ballot 'Vote from Home' facility has been extended to nonagenarian senior citizens and voters with benchmark disabilities exceeding 40 percent under Rule 27A of the Conduct of Elections Rules.
The constitutional architecture of the Election Commission of India under Articles 324 through 329, the statutory provisions of the Representation of the People Acts (RPA) of 1950 and 1951, the legal status of the Model Code of Conduct, and landmark Supreme Court jurisprudence on electoral integrity (Subramanian Swamy v. ECI 2013) represent core pillars in UPSC Civil Services (GS-II: Indian Polity & Electoral Governance).