EC to conduct polls for vacant Rajya Sabha seats on Oct 4

The Election Commission on Thursday announced dates for bypolls for Rajya Sabha for various states. There are six casual vacancies in the Council of States while one seat from Puducherry is going for regular poll. A bypoll for the lone seat of legislative council in Bihar is also scheduled.

In West Bengal Manas Ranjan Bhunia, Assam's Biswajit Daimary, Tamil Nadu' K.P. Munusamy and Thiru. R. Vaithilingam resigned. BJP MP Thaawarchand Gehlot also resigned and has been appointed as Governor. While in Maharashtra the seat fell vacant after the demise of Congress MP Rajeev Satav and in Puducherry N. Gokulakrishna is retiring in October.

"The Commission has decided to hold six bye-elections to the Council of States -- Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Madhya Pradesh -- to fill up the vacancies," said a statement from the EC.

The EC schedule says: Issue of notification -- September 15 (Wednesday),

Last date of making nominations -- September 22

Scrutiny of nominations -- September 23

Last date for withdrawal of candidature -- September 27

Date of Poll -- October 4

The Counting of votes is on the same day, that is October 4.

There is a casual vacancy in the Bihar Legislative Council to be filled up by the members of Legislative Assembly due to the demise of Tanveer Akhtar.

The ECI said broad guidelines of Covid-19 as already issued by it as well as the recent guidelines set by it will have to be followed by all.

The Chief Secretaries of States concerned are being directed to depute a senior officer from the State to ensure that the extant instructions regarding Covid-19 containment measures are complied with while making arrangements for conducting the election.