Delay over EC quitting, festival dates: why 2024 Lok Sabha polls extend into June

The first general election to Lok Sabha was held over 68 phases from October 25, 1951, to February 21, 1952. More than 70 years later, the 2024 Parliamentary elections with a record number of 96.8 crore voters is set to be the longest.

That apart, the only other time general elections were held in June was the 1991 Lok Sabha polls, but that was because the Chandra Shekhar government was dissolved 16 months after it was sworn in.

In the last four election cycles held since 2004, voting has traditionally taken place in April and May, with new members of Parliament being elected by the end of May. For instance, in 2019, the last date of polling was May 19, and results were announced May 23. However, this year, even as the number of phases remains the same, seven, the last date of polling is June 1 and the results will be announced on June 4.

The spill over into June, sources said, is primarily due to two reasons: a six-day delay in announcing the polls compared to 2019 and consecutive festivals such as Holi, Tamil new year, Bihu and Baisakhi in March and April.

The Commission had to ensure that important dates such as the last date of withdrawal or polling days did not coincide with these festivals.

The delay in the poll announcement was partly circumstantial, as Election Commissioner Arun Goel abruptly quit, citing personal reasons, just days before the notification thereby reducing the poll panel to a single-member body.

At the time of Goel’s resignation, the third Election Commissioner, Anup Chandra Pandey, had already retired on February 14.

“It was preferred that we have the full Commission in place going into an election as crucial as the Lok Sabha elections. Although legally only the Chief Election Commissioner can conduct the elections, it would have seemed odd in terms of propriety and optics. So we chose to wait,” a senior officer said.

The government appointed two new Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, on March 14; they took charge March 15 and polls were announced a day later.

Apart from the initial six-day delay in the announcement, a further delay of a few days, which forced voting to stretch into June, occurred because the Commission had to navigate around several festivals and holidays.

“There are many factors that contribute to drafting an election schedule. For instance, security forces require at least six days for inter-state movement and redeployment between two election phases. If there’s a festival in between, we must ensure that crucial days such as nomination, the last date of withdrawal, or even polling day do not coincide with it, as it could disrupt the entire process,” another official said.

Asked if voting in a peak summer month would affect voter turnout, the official said that by the seventh phase, only 57 seats would be left  — in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. “All southern states and a state like Rajasthan where maximum temperatures go very high would have finished their voting by then,” the official said.