New Delhi, April 2
The elections to the 224-member Vidhan Sabha in Karnataka will be held in three phases in May and these will be the first elections in the country with the recently delimited constituencies. The Chief Election Commissioner, N. Gopalaswami, announced the elections here today.

The elections in the southern state will be held on May, 10, 16 and 22 and the model code of conduct has comes into force, said the CEC. The counting of votes has been scheduled for May 25. In the first phase, 89 constituencies will go to polls, 69 constituencies will go to polls in the second phase and the remaining 66 seats in the last phase. The last date for filing nominations is April 23 and 28 and May 3 for the three phases, respectively. There are a total of 39,758 polling stations across the state.

Sensitive polling booths will have digital cameras.

The elections have come about after the Deva Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) and the BJP could not hold its alliance together and the Assembly was dissolved on November 28 last year.

The electoral rolls, with reference to January 1, 2008, will be the qualifying date in terms of the old Assembly constituencies. The same has been published. The CEC said in view of the delimitation, the electoral rolls of a new constituency could be prepared by putting together the section of the rolls of the existing constituencies. The electoral rolls of all Assembly constituencies had been put on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka.

Gopalaswami said about 62 per cent of the voters had photo identity cards and a campaign would be launched to issue cards to the rest of the voters. It may be mentioned that the CEC had launched a similar campaign in Punjab in January last year in the run up to the Assembly polls.

The commission has already given instructions that no election related official or police officer of the rank of sub-inspector and above should be allowed to continue in his home district. Besides, instructions had also been issued that all election related officials, including police officials who had completed three years in a district during the past four years, should be transferred out of that district. The state government has also been asked to transfer all those officers against whom the commission has recommended disciplinary action in the past or who have been charged with any lapse in the election related work from the positions entailing any election work.

Meanwhile, Gopalaswami, when asked about the dates for holding byelections to the three Assembly constituencies in Haryana, said, “Everything will be on time” but refused to divulge further details. Sources, meanwhile, said a formal announcement for holding elections to Adampur, Gohana and Indri seats vacated after the expulsion of Bhajan Lal, Dharam Pal Malik and Rakesh Kamboj from the Haryana Assembly was being expected. The Assembly still has a two years to go.