Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishna Murthy is reviewing poll preparations in Maharashtra.

He will meet political leaders and administration officials.

Election Commissioner B B Tandon and N Gopalaswami are with him.

They will discuss, among other things, the security situation and the model code of conduct, sources said.

The poll process will formally take off on Tuesday when the governor issues a notification for holding elections to the 288-member assembly on October 13.

The last date for filing nominations is September 22 and scrutiny will be the next day. The last date of withdrawal of candidature is September 25.

Re-poll, if any, will be held on October 15 and the votes will be counted the next day.

The model code of conduct is already in force.

By-elections to four Lok Sabha seats -- Mainpuri, Akbarpur (Uttar Pradesh), Madhepura (Bihar) and Bidar (Karnataka) -- and 40 assembly constituencies spread over 14 states will also be held on October 13.

In the general election earlier this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine won 25 seats, while the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and its supporting parties bagged 23.

This time the election will be held in the backdrop of the Veer Savarkar controversy and the 'Tiranga Yatra' by former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and BJP leader Uma Bharti.

The BJP-Shiv Sena has charged the Congress-led Democratic Front government with failing to carry out any developmental work in the last five years.

The ruling combine alleges that the BJP-Shiv Sena government had earlier created a difficult economic situation by borrowing huge funds.

The other interesting aspect this time is that the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party will contest all the seats.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the BSP had made inroads in the Vidharbha region by securing sizeable votes, though none of its candidates won.

The party played spoilsport for the Congress-NCP in Vidharbha as the combine could win only one seat. The remaining 11 went to the BJP and Sena.