Indian voters will go to the polls in national elections to be held in four stages in April and May that are seen as likely to return the ruling Hindu nationalist-led alliance to power. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government sought early elections to capitalise on a booming economy and peace moves with Pakistan. The polls in which 675 million people can vote will be held in four stages on April 20, April 26, May 5 and May 10, Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy told reporters in the capital yesterday. Results of the elections that opinion polls suggest will result in a landslide win for the BJP-led alliance will be known on April 13. "Let India shine" in the conduct of these elections, he said, borrowing from a BJP slogan as he urged parties to comport themselves with dignity, refrain from violence and choose candidates with good records. "We do not want elections to be conducted on the basis of violence or personal attacks," Krishnamurthy said. Parliament was dissolved on February 6, paving the way for the polls to be held ahead of the expiry of the government's five-year term September 30. The polls pit the BJP's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, 79, against the opposition Congress Party, led by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, 57. Gandhi's foreign birth is a key issue in many voters' minds, polls suggest. Congress, last in power in 1996, has pledged good governance and to preserve India's secular identity which it says the BJP has jeopardised. It has just 109 members in the 545-seat parliament compared with the BJP's 180. Although it administers 11 of India's 28 states, it is finding it tough to prevent its support base from shrinking. Both parties have been engaged frantic deal-making to form broad-based alliances. Voting in the country of more than one billion people is a massive and cumbersome exercise. The election will be the first nationwide relying completely on electronic voting machines that will "ensure complete secrecy, total accuracy and neutrality," Krishnamurthy said. More than one million electronic voting machines will be used and hundreds of thousands of police and soldiers will be deployed. Analysts said the polls would differ sharply from previous elections because, for the first time, young people aged between 18 and 35 would form nearly 60 per cent of the total electorate. Some 141 constituencies will vote on the first polling day, 137 on the second, 83 on the third and 182 on May 10. Due to security problems in revolt-racked Kashmir, polls there will be staggered over the four voting days. Simultaneous state elections will be held in four states - Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the south, Orissa in the east and Sikkim in the northeast. To ensure clean elections after previous polls that were often contested by people with criminal records, all candidates must present affidavits disclosing assets and any convictions. The general elections for the first time ban candidates with criminal records. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Workers of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party carry party flags on the eve of an election campaign rally of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the northern town of Faizabad, February 6, 2004. (REUTERS/Kamal Kishore)