Jaipur: Voting for bypolls on seven assembly seats in Rajasthan will be held on November 13, the results of which will be declared on November 23, according to the Election Commission of India. At a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced the schedule for bypolls in 48 assembly constituencies spread and two parliamentary constituencies spread across 15 states.
In Rajasthan, bypolls will be held in Jhunjhunu, Dausa, Deoli-Uniara, Khinvsar, Chaurasi, Salumbar and Ramgarh assembly seats. Out of the seven seats on which bypolls are to be held, four of them were with the Congress. Two of these by-elections are being held due to the deaths of the MLAs: Ramgarh's Congress MLA Zubair Khan and Salumbar's BJP MLA Amritlal Meena.
In five constituencies, the MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls, necessitating bypolls. They are Congress MLA Brijendra Ola from Jhunjhunu, Congress MLA Harish Chandra Meena from Dausa, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MLA Hanuman Beniwal from Khinsivar and Rajkumar Roat of Bharat Adivasi Party from Chaurasi.
Currently, the 200-seat state assembly has 114 MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party, 65 of the Congress, three of the Bharat Adivasi Party, two of the Bahujan Samaj Party, one of the Rashtriya Lok Dal and eight Independent MLAs. As per official data, there are 1,862 polling stations and 19,36,532 voters in the seven assembly seats that will hold bypolls next month.
After the dates of the bypolls were announced, Congress state president Govind Dotasra the BJP "will get zero seats in the bypolls". Taking a dig at the state government's tenure so far, he said, "The nine to ten months of BJP government in Rajasthan have left people completely disappointed and distressed. People are saying that the government has become a circus," he said.
The Assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20, while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20, the Election Commission said. Votes will be counted on November 23.
