20 facts about the India polls
All you need to know before the elections begin
• Around 900 million voters will elect 543 members to the Lok Sabha.
• About 15 million new voters will be in the age group of 18-19 years.
• A total of 1 million polling stations would be set up.
• The largest constituency is Malkajgiri in Andhra Pradesh with about 3.1 million voters.
• The smallest (and single) constituency is the Union territory of Lakshadweep with 49,922 voters. It is reserved for members of Scheduled Tribes.
• The first election in Lakshadweep took place in 1967. Prior to that, the President of India directly appointed its member of parliament.
• Area-wise, the smallest constituency is Chandni Chowk (10.59 sq km) in Delhi.
• The largest constituency is Ladakh (73,266.37 sq km) in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Officials set up 531 polling stations for 160,000 voters in Ladakh in 2014.
• In the mountains, officials trudge for miles to conduct polling. In 2014, Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh, the Hukani polling station had 22 voters. Officials travelled 22 kms on foot to reach there.
• In 2004, officials set up a polling booth manned by five people for just one voter in Banej village (in Gujarat’s Gir forest).
• The record for the smallest winning margin (9 votes) is jointly held by Congress party’s K. Ramakrishna (in 1989) from Anakapalli, Andhra Pradesh and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Som Marandi (in 1998) from Rajmahal, Bihar.
• Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were first introduced in 1982-83.
• For the first time, EVM and postal ballot papers will carry the photograph of all the candidates to help voters identify the political party in the fray.
• In 2014, total contestants in the fray were 8,159, with an average of 15 candidates in each constituency. Deposit of 6,959 contestants was forfeited.
• There were nearly 6 million NOTA (none of the above) votes.
• Out of total 543 elected candidates, only 62 were women (the highest number ever), though 668 had contested.
• The transgender community voted for the first time in 2014 elections under the ‘others’ or ‘third sex’ category.
• In 2014, it was the first time since 1937 polls that any party other than the Congress won an absolute majority. BJP won 282 seats.