Election Commission likely to announce bypoll dates today

[Prem Kumar]

Election Commission likely to announce bypoll dates today

Bypolls are to be conducted for one Lok Sabha seat in Bihar and 64 Assembly constituencies across various states. The Assembly constituencies include 27 from Madhya Pradesh which fell vacant in March.



The Election Commission of India (ECI) will on Tuesday take a call on byelections to one Lok Sabha and 64 assembly constituencies.

On Friday, while announcing the schedule of the Bihar Assembly polls, chief election commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora had said the poll body would hold a meeting on September 29 regarding the bypolls and make an announcement in the evening.

Earlier this month, the ECI, in a statement, had said the Bihar Assembly polls and the 65 bypolls would be conducted around the same time. However, on Friday, Arora said the ECI had received representations from some states, especially southern states, to defer the polling exercise in view of the prevailing Covid-19 situation.

The Lok Sabha seat to which bypoll is to be held is Valmiki Nagar in Bihar. The 64 Assembly seats, meanwhile, include 27 from Madhya Pradesh which were vacated after Congress MLAs followed their leader Jyotiraditya Scindia in joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resulting in the collapse of the state's Congress government and return to power of the BJP.

The Bihar Assembly polls will take place in three phases--October 28, November 3 and November 7 with counting of votes on November 10--as announced by the commission on Friday.

Sources by : Hindustan Times