Three LS, 30 assembly seats to go for by-elections on Oct 30: EC

Bypolls to three Lok Sabha seats and 30 assembly constituencies spread across 14 states will be held on October 30, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday.

The counting of votes will take place on November 2.

The seats where Lok Sabha by-elections will be held are Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh.

In all three constituencies, the sitting Lok Sabha members had died.

The Mandi Lok Sabha seat fell vacant after the death of Ramswaroop Sharma (BJP) at his Delhi residence in March this year.

The by-election to the Khandwa parliamentary constituency was necessitated following the death of BJP member Nand Kumar Singh Chauhan.

Mohan Delkar, an Independent Lok Sabha member from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was found dead in a Mumbai hotel in February, necessitating the bypolls.

The assembly bypolls will be held in 30 seats spread across 14 states.

Five of these seats are in Assam, four are in West Bengal, three each are in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, two each are in Bihar, Karnataka and Rajasthan and one each is in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Nagaland and Telangana.

"The Commission has reviewed the situation related to pandemic, flood, festivals, cold conditions in certain regions, feedback from concerned States/UT and taken into consideration all facts and circumstances," the EC said in a statement while announcing the decision to hold the bypolls.

Prohibition of pre and post nomination processions, 50 percent capacity at outdoor venues for campaigning, a maximum of 20 star campaigners for national and state recognised parties and a silence period of 72 hours before the end of polling are some of the COVID-19-related restrictions imposed by the Election Commission for the bypolls.

On September 4, the EC had announced bypolls to the Bhabanipur assembly seat in West Bengal and polling for three "deferred adjourned" elections in two assembly seats of West Bengal and one seat of Odisha.

The EC had then said that based on inputs received from states where bypolls are due, it has decided not to hold by-elections in other assembly constituencies and three parliamentary constituencies in view of the pandemic situation, floods and festival season.