The Election Commission of India has announced by-elections for four States Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. The polls will be held on August 21 for 18 vacant Assembly seats across the four states- 10 in Bihar, 3 each in Karnataka and MP, 2 in Punjab.
However, the Election Commission has postponed the conduct of by-polls in the new state of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana. While there is one vacant Lok Sabha seat in Telangana, there are two Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh. The vacancy in Telangana is due to Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao who has given up his Medak MP seat upon his election to Gajwel Assembly.The vacuum in two Assembly seats in Seemandhra are Allagadda Assembly constituency following tragic death of YSR Congress MLA Sobha Nagireddy and the other is Nandigama Assembly constituency after TDP MLA Tangirala Prabhakar passed away due to heart stroke.
Although the State election authorities have sent the details of the vacant seats in AP and Telangana long back, we hear that there is no response from EC on this yet. Political parties in AP and Telangana had expected by-polls and made all the preparations but the news of postponement dismayed them. Sources in EC say that they’re weighing various options including pending cases in the courts like Election Petitions, before announcing by-polls for existing vacancies.
