Bypolls to Lakshadweep Lok Sabha, 6 Assembly seats on February 27: EC

Bypoll to the Lakshadweep Lok Sabha seat, which was vacated following the disqualification of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) member Mohammed Faizal after his conviction in a criminal case, will be held on February 27, along with by-elections to six Assembly seats spread over five states. All the bypolls will take place along with the Assembly polls in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

The counting of votes will be taken up on March 2, the day the results of the Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland Assembly polls are scheduled to be announced. The Tripura Assembly polls will be held on February 16.

While two bypolls will take place in Maharashtra (the Kasba Peth and Chinchwad seats), one bypoll each will be held in Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bangal and Tamil Nadu, the Election Commission (EC) said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Lumla seat in Arunachal Pradesh fell vacant following the death of incumbent MLA Jambey Tashi. The Ramgarh seat in Jharkhand was vacated after the disqualification of Mamta Devi.

The Erode (East) seat in Tamil Nadu was vacated after the death of incumbent MLA E Thirumahan Everaa. West Bengal's Sagardighi Assembly seat fell vacant after the death of incumbent MLA Subrata Saha. The death of Congress MP from Jalandhar Santokh Singh was not "reported" to the EC by the Lok Sabha secretariat. Hence, bypoll to the parliamentary seat was not announced on Wednesday, sources later explained.

A vacancy is notified by the legislative body concerned -- Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, state assemblies and legislative councils -- following which the EC takes a call on holding a bypoll.
The notification for all the bypolls will be issued on January 31.

READ | Assembly Elections 2023: Tripura polls on February 16, Nagaland and Meghalaya to vote on February 27