BENGALURU: The Election Commission of India has announced October 3 as the polling date for bypolls to three vacant seats of the Karnataka Legislative Council. This will be the first test of “sharing” between coalition partners JD(S) and Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Coordination Committee of the coalition government in its previous meeting had decided to face the election in an alliance to collectively challenge the BJP. While no discussion on how the two parties will go about the bypoll has been made, it is expected to be a trial run of sorts for seat sharing between the partners.
BJP leaders K S Eshwarappa, whose term is till June 30, 2020, and V Sommanna, whose term extends to June 14, 2022, and Congress leader G Parameshwara, whose term extends to June 30, 2020, resigned from the Upper House after they were elected to the Legislative Assembly in the recent polls. The bypolls to the three seats will be held alongside bypolls to one seat of Maharashtra Legislative Council.
According to the EC, the date of notification will be September 14 while the last date for nominations will be September 22. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on September 24 and the last date to withdraw the nominations will be September 2. Polling will take place on October 6 between 9am and 4pm. Counting of votes will be held on the same day at 5 pm.
Schedule
Sept 14: Notification
Sept 22 : Last date to file nomination
Sept 24: Scrutiny of nominations
Sept 26: Last date to withdraw candidates
Oct 3 (9 am - 4 pm: Polling
Oct 3 (5 pm onwards): Counting