25 Assembly bypolls due, 8 in UP and Uttarakhand may not be held

While bypolls to nearly 25 assembly seats, 3 parliamentary constituencies and at least four Rajya Sabha seats are currently pending or have been held back by the Election Commission of India due to Covid-19, eight assembly seats may not see a bypoll at all.
Six seats that fell vacant in Uttar Pradesh and another two in Uttarakhand may not go the bypoll route. The reason: both states are due for assembly elections in a few months from now. While Uttarakhand is to have a new state assembly in place by March 2022, UP must have one by May 2022.

This scenario will compel the EC to look at the vacant seats in the two states in the light of Section 151A of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951. This section stipulates that a by-election for filling any vacancy shall be held within six months from the date of the occurrence of the vacancy. However, it says that an exception is permissible when the remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is less than a year.

While most of the eight seats do require a poll to be conducted within six months –– that is by September –– the ECI is not obligated to hold these bypolls, given the assembly polls are likely to be scheduled around February 2022.

The issue will be examined in the light of the relevant laws before a final decision is taken, EC sources told ET.

In UP, six assembly seats fell vacant in the last two months, mainly due to Covid-19 deaths. Five BJP MLAs passed away amid the second wave in UP.

Suar in Rampur is vacant following the disqualification of Samajwadi Party’s Abdullah Azam –– Azam Khan’s son –– due to some dicrepencies in his election affidavit.

In Uttarakhand, MLAs of Gangotri and Haldwani –– Gopal Singh Rawat and Indira Hridyesh –– passed away on April 23 and June 13 respectively, leaving two seats vacant.

The EC now has a significant number of bypoll schedules to plan amid the ongoing pandemic and is moving rather cautiously. In May, it deferred polls in the parliamentary constituencies of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.

Bypolls to eight assembly constituencies have also been postponed across several states/UTs –– Kalka and Ellenabad in Haryana, Vallabhnagar in Rajasthan, Sindgi in Karnataka, Rajabala and Mawryngkneng in Meghalaya, Fatehpur in Himachal Pradesh and Badvel in Andhra Pradesh.

The Pipili bypoll in Odisha had to be deferred twice amid the pandemic.

Then there are at least seven bypolls which need to be conducted in West Bengal.

Congress candidate for Shamsergunj, Rezaul Haque and RSP candidate for Jangipur Pradip Nandi died of Covid-19, leaving two seats vacant. While polls were scheduled here for May 12, they were put off by the EC citing the second wave.

TMC’s winning candidate in Kharda also died due to Covid-19.

Four other seats in the state have been vacated. BJP’s Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar have resigned as MLAs of Dinhata and Santipur as they are MPs.

Then there is the Rajya Sabha. A by-election to Rajya Sabha is needed in Kerala to fill the vacancy created by Jose K Mani’s resignation. Three RS vacancies have arisen in Tamil Nadu –– while AIADMK member A Mohammedjan passed away, MPs R Vaithilingam and KP Munusamy were elected to the state assembly in the recent elections.