The Election Commission has decided that byelections due in 64 assembly constituencies and one parliamentary seat will be held around the same time as the state polls in Bihar which are required to be completed before November 29 this year.
The Commission decided on coinciding the bypolls with the Bihar elections in view of chief secretaries and chief electoral officers of many of the concerned states seeking deferment of the polls in view of several factors, including extraordinary heavy rains in some places and other constraints like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision on the deferment of the byelections was taken at a meeting of the Commission on Friday, in which the reports and inputs from chief secretaries and chief electoral officers of the states where the polls were due were reviewed.
One of the major factors in clubbing the elections, the Commission said in a release, was the relative ease of central paramilitary forces and other law and order forces, and related logistical issues.
Announcement of the schedule of the assembly elections in Bihar as well as the bypolls will be made by the Commission at an appropriate time, it was stated in the release.
The Commission had on July 23 deferred byelections in eight seats up to September 7 in view of “extraordinary circumstances” peculiar to those constituencies. The deferment of the bypolls comes in the midst of a debate on whether it is advisable to have elections during the pandemic.
The EC, meanwhile, has come out with a set of guidelines and standard operating procedures on conducting elections in the midst of COVID-19. While the ruling parties in Bihar, the BJP and the JD(U), have welcomed the guidelines, the opposition parties say that the norms do not meet their demands, will not allow a level playing field and will even discourage voters from coming out to vote.
