Karnataka bypolls now rescheduled to December 5

The polling for the bye-elections in 15 assembly constituencies in Karnataka will now be held on December 5 and the votes will be counted on December 9, the Election Commission announced on Friday.

The EC had earlier scheduled the polling for the bye-elections in the 15 constituencies on October 21 and the counting on October 24. The poll-panel however agreed before the Supreme Court to defer the polling, so that the apex court can take a final decision on the pleas by the legislators, whom the former Speaker, K R Ramesh Kumar, had stripped of membership and debarred to be member again during the current term of the assembly.

The poll panel now decided to restart filing of nominations on November 11. It set November 18 as the last date for filing nominations. The nominations would be scrutinized on November 19 while the last date for withdrawal of nominations had been set as November 21.

The EC clarified that the nominations already filed between September 23 and September 28 would also be taken up for scrutiny on November 19 along with the new nominations filed between November 11 and November 18.

The polling would be conducted from 7-00 a.m. to 6-00 p.m. on December 5.

The vacancies were created when the 17 legislators of the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) resigned, resulting in the collapse of H D Kumaraswamy's Government and the return of the Bharatiya Janata Party to power with B S Yediyurappa as Chief Minister in July.