Panaji: The Election Commission of India on Sunday that the Lok Sabha elections and bypolls for three Assembly seats in Goa will be held next month. In the state known for its happening lifestyle, a strict watch will be kept on casinos in Goa to ensure they are not used for laundering money during the Lok Sabha polls

Elections for the state's two Lok Sabha seats, with 11.31 lakh voters, and bypolls for three Assembly seats will be held on April 23. In 2014, an all-time-high 76.82 percent of the voters exercised the franchise in the two Lok Sabha constituencies, nearly 21% more than the polling percentage in 2009. The then Chief Electoral Officer said that North Goa constituency recorded 78.60 percent voting while in South Goa it was 75.14 percent. He also said this was the highest turnout witnessed in the state in a Parliamentary election, which broke the earlier record of 61 percent in 1998. The 2014 voting percentage was way above the meagre 55.30 per cent in 2009 elections.

In 2014, the voting percentage indicated huge polling in the mining belt, where people were demanding resumption of economic activity in Goa.

The state has two Parliamentary constituencies- North Goa and South Goa, both of which are currently held by the ruling BJP. Union Ayush minister Shripad Naik represents North Goa who in 2014 won defeating Congress’ Ravi Naik while Narendra Sawaikar is South Goa MP. He had defeated Congress's Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco in South Goa.

In North Goa, Sripad Naik got 1,76,124, Ravi Naik 87,145 votes and Dattaram Desai from AAP got 11,791 votes. In South Goa, Sawaikar got 1,98,776 votes against Reginaldo’s 1,66,446.

The bypolls to Shiroda and Mandrem were necessitated after its Congress MLAs resigned from the Legislative Assembly and party and joined the BJP.

The Mapusa bypoll was needed due to the death of sitting BJP MLA Francis D'Souza.

BJP’s Goa general secretary Sadanand Shet Tanawade said the party would soon form its election committee to finalise candidates for the polls. While theCongress state unit chief Girish Chodankar said his party would announce names of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in the next "five to ten days".

The Aam Aadmi Party, meanwhile, has said that former bureaucrat Elvis Gomes will contest from South Goa while its state general secretary Pradeep Padgaonkar will be fielded from North Goa.