Live Updates: Lok Sabha elections to be held from April 11 to May 19, counting on May 23

Meeting with chief secretaries were held to assess the overall law and order situation in states: CEC

The ECI has attempted a very comprehensive preparation for the conduct of election: CEC Sunil Arora

CEC Sunil Arora has arrived for the media briefing

EC's media briefing to begin shortly

Congress calls EC's scheduled announcement of poll dates 'Modi's vidai parv'

In 2014, the EC had announced the election schedule on March 5 and the nine-phase electoral exercise was spread across April and May.

There is a high probability of the elections being spread across seven to eight phases this time: PTI

The required electronic voting machines and paper trail machines are in place to be deployed in nearly 10 lakh poling stations across 543 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The J&K assembly's six-year term was to end on March 16, 2021, but it got dissolved after a ruling coalition between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell apart.

All political parties in the state favoured simultaneous polls during a meeting with the Election Commission earlier this week.

The Centre and the state administration, being managed by the Centre-appointed Governor, are against holding the two elections together.

While there is a view that the J-K assembly elections can be held along with the Lok Sabha polls, a lot depends on the complex security situation in the state given the heightened tension along the India-Pakistan border.

Since the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has been dissolved, the EC is bound to hold fresh polls there as well within a six-month period, which will end in May.

There is a strong possibility that the EC may go by the precedent and hold assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh along with the Lok Sabha polls.

Notification for the first phase could be issued by the end of March for voting some time in early April, sources suggested.

Amongst other things, the code bars the government from announcing policy decisions.

As soon as the elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his bid to return to power amid hectic parleys by several political parties to put a united fight against the ruling BJP, are announced, the model code of conduct will come into force.

The term of the present Lok Sabha ends on June 3.