The Election Commission (EC) may not be in a hurry to hold byelections to 18 Assembly consituencies, for which the bar on holding by-polls has been lifted with the Madras High Court’s latest verdict.
This could be gauged from observations of Chief Election Commissioner O. P. Rawat on Wednesday who referred to the stipulation of holding the byelections within a period of six months, as mandated by Section 151A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. “The Commission will see it from that angle,” he told the media in New Delhi.
Asked whether the EC would prefer to wait for any of the affected former legislators to file an appeal in the Supreme Court, Satyabrata Sahoo, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer, said he had not yet seen the copy of the High Court’s judgement. He added that “we will get to know from the Assembly Secretariat [on the situation] and inform the Election Commission.”
Apart from the 18 constituencies, two more - Tiruparankundram and Thiruvarur - are vacant, following the death of legislators. Earlier this month, the EC decided to defer holding the bypolls to the two constituencies, citing north-east monsoon.
However, Naresh Gupta, who held the post of Chief Electoral Officer for about eight years in two spells (1998-2000 and 2005-2010), said “in any case,” the Election Commission and the State election machinery would require time to prepare themselves for holding the byelections. If the by-polls had to be held within the period of six months, several factors including the monsoon and high school exams had to be considered.
As the general elections would also be due in April-May, the possibility of combining the by-elections with the parliamentary polls could not be ruled out, he said