The Election Commission will announce the schedule for by-elections to 64 Assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha constituency on September 29, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said on Friday.
While announcing the schedule for the Bihar Assembly polls, Mr. Arora said the EC would hold a meeting on September 29 regarding the schedule for the by-elections and make the announcement that evening. The EC had on September 4 said in a statement that the by-polls and the Bihar elections would be conducted “around the same time.” “One of the major factors in clubbing them together is the relative ease of movement of CAPF/other law and order forces, and related logistics issues,” the EC had said.
However, Mr. Arora said the EC had received representations from States, particularly some southern States, in the past few days seeking deferment of the by-polls due to the prevailing COVID-19 situation. He said the EC would go through the representations and decide on September 29. Among the vacant Assembly seats, 27 are in Madhya Pradesh that fell vacant when the Congress MLAs quit to join the BJP.
