Election Commission of India in a release said that a total of 16.63 crore voters are eligible to take part in the polls

A total of 1.87 lakh polling stations have been set up, while 18 lakh personnel have been deployed

"The Election Commission of India has made all preparations to welcome voters to the biggest festival of democracy that any nation has witnessed, the elections to the 18th Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies in four states that start off tomorrow with Phase 1," the release said

It has the highest number of parliamentary constituencies among all phases. Voting begins at 7 AM and ends at 6 PM (Closure of Poll timings may differ PC-wise), the poll body said

Voters include 8.4 crore Males; 8.23 crore Females and 11,371 Third gender electors. There are 35.67 lakh first-time voters registered to cast their votes. Additionally, there are 3.51 crore young voters in the age group 20-29 years

There are a total of 1625 candidates (Males - 1491; and Females-134) in the fray

The poll body informed that there are 41 helicopters, 84 Special trains and nearly 1 lakh vehicles have been deployed to ferry polling and security personnel