Chennai, Mar 21: The single phase polling for the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry will be held from 7 am to 6 pm on April 19.

This was announced by the Election Commission, as notification for the polls was issued yesterday, marking the commencement of nominations for the elections.

The last date for filing of nominations is March 27 and the scrutiny will take place the next day.

The last date of withdrawals is March 30 and the polling will be held on April 19. The counting of votes will be taken up on June four.

According to the Election Commission, there were 6.19 crore voters in Tamil Nadu.

This included 3.15 crore women, 3.05 crore men and 8,294 from the Third Gender.

There were 9.18 lakh first time voters in the 18-19 age group and 1.08 crore voters in the 20-29 age group.

Among the electorate were 4.33 lakh physically disabled, 14.66 lakh very senior citizens and 8,765 centenarians.

It said in all there would be 68,144 polling booths across the 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu of which 40,838 would be Rural booths and 27,306 Urban booths.

However, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo said the number of booths could be increased by another 150 booths from the present 68,144 booths, including 3,719 in Chennai.

In the city, 14 check posts, 192 flying squads, 192 static and 32 video surveillance teams, and 32 video viewing teams will be deployed. They will be equipped with vehicles with 360 deg live feed cameras, and the operations and grievances will be handled via the Integrated Command and Control Centre, Dr J.Radhakrishnan, District Election Officer and Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner, said.

Since the model code of conduct (MCC) came into effect on Saturday, steps were taken by the civic body and all political banners, paintings, cut-outs, hoardings, flag staffs, notices, slogans etc., were cleared from government offices, public spaces and from private premises.

UNI