HYDERABAD: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday issued two separate notifications for elections to fill the two vacant seats in the Telangana Legislative Council on Thursday. Accordingly, the MLAs will cast their vote for the candidates in the elections to be held, if required, from 9 am to 4 pm on January 29. Given that there will be separate elections for the two vacancies, the Congress MLAs would be allowed to cast votes separately for the party candidates, making their victory a certainty.
The vacancies arose as BRS MLCs Kadiyam Srihari (Station Ghanpur) and Padi Kaushik Reddy (Huzurabad) tendered their resignations from the Council following their election to the Telangana Assembly last month. Their terms were to expire on November 30, 2027.As per the notification, scrutiny of nominations will take place on January 19 and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is January 22.
The ECI notification said that the “broad guidelines of Covid-19”, issued in October 2023 before elections to five states, must be followed wherever applicable during the election process. In the 119-member Assembly, the Congress has 64 MLAs and its ally, the CPI, one. The BRS has 39 MLAs, BJP eight and the MIM seven.