BENGALURU: The Election Commission on Tuesday announced the schedule to hold bypolls for Belagavi (parliamentary), Maski and Basavakalyan (assembly) seats, but chose to omit Sindagi.
The gazette notification will be made on March 23. The last date for nominations will be March 30, scrutiny on March 31, and the last date for withdrawal of nominations will be April 3. The election will be held on April 17.
CEO Sanjiv Kumar told TNIE that the Election Commission would have taken an all-India cutoff date, and since Sindagi was not vacant on that date, the election there will be held with the other constituencies which fall vacant across the nation.
It may be recalled that Sindagi JDS MLA MC Managuli passed away recently. Belagavi fell vacant after the death of Union Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi in September, Maski fell vacant after former Congress MLA Prathapgouda Patil resigned and moved to the BJP, and in Basavakalyan, Congress MLA Narayana Rao passed away in September.
It may be recalled that on February 26, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora had announced that all election and byelection results would be announced on May 2. Arora did not announce the dates then, only saying the schedule would be announced in a separate notification later.
Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai said, “We will win the byelections with record margins. In the last bypolls, we won 12 of the 15 assembly constituencies, and we won RR Nagar too with a solid margin. This time, we will win Maski and Basavakalyan with record margins under the leadership of CM Yediyurappa.
In Belagavi, people have given full support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and this was manifest during Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent rally in Belagavi.’’All three parties have been preparing for the bypolls for the past few weeks, and preparations have intensified since the last week of February.