New Delhi - Parliamentary elections in India will be held in five phases between April 16 and May 13, India's Election Commission announced Monday.

A new Lok Sabha, or lower House of Parliament, will be constituted before June 2, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said at a press briefing.

The term of the current United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ends in mid-May and a new government will be constituted after the election results are announced on May 16.

Elections to India's 545-member lower house of Parliament are held every five years and are said to be the biggest democratic exercise in the world.

Of the 545 seats, elections will be held for 543, while two seats are reserved for nominated members.

Each representative in the lower house is directly elected by voters in constituencies with roughly the same number of people from the country's 28 states and seven union territories.

The lower house is the principal repository of all legislative power at the federal level in India with the upper house, or Rajya Sabha, having no power of veto.

The 714-million-strong electorate is expected to vote in the 2009 elections in secret balloting using more than a million electronic voting machines.

The main contest in 2009 is expected to be between the incumbent United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress Party and the opposition National Democratic Alliance led by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (dpa)