The Election Commission on Thursday announced 15 by-elections in April for three Lok Sabha seats, two from Jammu and Kashmir and one from Kerala and 12 Assembly seats in 10 states.

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These by-elections are slated either on April 9 or 12. The exercise is to complete the electoral college for the President's election to be held in June. The Election Commission will have to issue a separate notification to fill one vacancy in the Rajya Sabha caused by the death of Congress MP Haji Abdul Salam in February. It could not declare the poll schedule since the new Manipur Assembly is yet to be constituted after the elections, results of which will be out on Saturday.

The polling for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat and the Assembly seats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Delhi is fixed for April 9. The by-elections are for two Assembly seats of Ater and Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh, Dholpur in Rajasthan and Rajouri Garden in Delhi. For polling in the remaining by-elections —Anantnag Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir and Malappuram Lok Sabha seat in Kerala and one Assembly seat each in Tamil Nadu and Sikkim, April 12 has been fixed. The Assembly seat of Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar in Chennai fell vacant after the death of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

In Madhya Pradesh, bypoll to Ater seat in Bhind district was necessitated after the death of sitting Congress MLA Satyadev Katare. Whereas at Bandhavgarh (ST) in Umaria district, the seat fell vacant after sitting BJP MP Gyan Singh won the Lok Sabha bypoll from Shahdol, in November last year. The counting will take place on April 13, an EC official said.

The nominations for the bypolls will be filed between March 14-21, while the scrutiny will be done on March 22. The last date for the withdrawal of candidature is March 24.