Election Commission to take call on bypolls on September 29

The Election Commission (EC) will take a call on holding the bypolls in a parliamentary constituency in Bihar and 64 assembly constituencies in 14 states across the country on September 29.

Though the poll-panel announced the schedule of holding the assembly elections in Bihar on Friday, it did not do so for the pending bypolls. It had earlier decided that all the bypolls would be held along with the general elections to the Legislative Assembly of Bihar.

The commission, however, of late received representations from the governments of some of the states about conducting the bye-elections. The poll-panel would study the views expressed by the state governments during a meeting on Tuesday, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said.

The 65 bypolls pending across the country include the one required to be held in Valmiki Nagar parliamentary constituency in Bihar. The assembly constituencies, where by-elections will be held, include Sira in Karnataka. The vacancy was created as the Janata Dal (Secular) MLA B Sathyanarayana passed away early last month.

The other assembly constituencies, where bye-elections are due, include 27 in Madhya Pradesh, where most of the vacancies were created in March as the MLAs followed Jyotiraditya Scindia left the Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party leading to a change of regime in Bhopal