New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) on Sunday (March 15) released the schedule for the assembly polls in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal that are to be held next month, wherein all but the lattermost state will undergo elections in a single phase.While the elections in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, those in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry will take place on April 9 while Tamil Nadu will go to polls on April 23.Votes in all five states and Union territories will be counted on May 4, three days before the earliest date that any of their assemblies – i.e. that of West Bengal – are set to expire.Some 17.4 crore electors figure in the final electoral rolls published in these five states and Union territories – four of which saw the controversial special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list take place while in Assam a ‘special revision’ was conducted – and will be eligible to exercise their franchise, the EC said on Sunday.West Bengal’s figure of 6.46 crore electors – making it the largest of the states going to polls – may increase because those whose status as voters is still ‘under adjudication’ and who end up being cleared would be placed in supplementary lists that will be released as the process goes on.Alongside the elections the EC will also hold bypolls to eight assembly constituencies that became vacant in light of their legislators’ deaths, including Baramati, whose MLA Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar died in a plane crash on January 28.The other seats that will undergo byelections are Goa’s Ponda, Karnataka’s Bagalkot and Davanagere South, Nagaland’s Koridang and Tripura’s Dharmanagar on April 9, while Gujarat’s Umreth and Maharashtra’s Rahuri and Baramati will go to polls on April 23. Votes cast in all these seats too will be counted on May 4.During the EC’s presser on Sunday, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said that the SIR is being conducted across India “to ensure that no eligible elector is left out while no ineligible person is included in the electoral rolls”, the ‘purity’ of which is the “bedrock of any democracy”.“With regards to the political statements made by certain political leaders or political parties, the Commission does not wish … to engage in such dialogues,” he also said later in the press conference.The SIR has been contentious, especially in West Bengal, where the Supreme Court recently authorised judicial officers including from Odisha and Jharkhand to adjudicate on pending applications, noting the “trust deficit” between the EC and the Trinamool Congress-run state government. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee too appeared in the apex court and wrote letters to Kumar criticising the conduct of the exercise.Following Sunday’s announcement the model code of conduct has come into force into the poll-bound states, territories and relevant districts. The Congress has noted that the schedule was announced immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited each of the four major states where elections are due next month.Party MP and communications general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that the EC “would have been given the go-ahead by the G2, since G1 would have completed this round of inaugurations, ribbon-cuttings, flag-offs and launches [sic]”.