The Election Commission of India (ECI) issued the notification for polling to fill up the two vacant seats in the TS Legislative Council on Thursday. The election will be held on January 29 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The election under the MLAs quota has been necessitated as sitting members Kadiyam Srihari and Padi Kaushik Reddy submitted their resignations on December 9, after they were elected as MLAs in the Assembly elections last year.
The last date of filing nominations is January 18 and scrutiny of the nominations would be held the next day. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is January 22. Counting of votes will be held on January 29 itself. The ECI directed that the election process should be completed before February 1.
This election appears to be one-sided as the ECI has decided to conduct separate elections for the two vacant seats, objections raised by the BRS notwithstanding. BRS is reportedly contemplating to take to legal recourse as separate elections would be advantageous to the ruling party.
In the 119-member Assembly, Congress has 64 members and its ally CPI one. The BRS has 39 members, BJP 8 and MIM 7. Given the instructions issued by the ECI for conducting separate elections to the two vacancies, the Congress members would be allowed to cast votes separately for the party nominees making their election a formality.
