Heartily welcome EC's announcement of Karnataka bypolls: Basavaraj Ingin

BJP leader Basavaraj Ingin on Saturday welcomed the announcement of bye-polls by the Election Commission for 15 assembly constituencies of Karnataka.

"I welcome heartily the announcement of the by election to 15 assembly constituencies in Karnataka by the election commission," Ingin told ANI.

"People are trying to interpret why the by-polls were announced and later withdrawn. There was a dispute before the court, the EC had to intervene to tell people the correctness of the issues and then once it went to the court they must have withdrawn and now they have declared it," he said.

December 5, is the date on which by-polls start and December 11 is the date before which the elections shall be completed," the Election Commission announced on Friday.

The poll for 15 Assembly constituencies namely Athani, Kagwad, Gokak, Yellapur, Hirekerur, Ranibennur, Vijayanagara, Chikkaballapur, K.R. Pura, Yeshvanthapura, Mahalakshmi, Shivajinagar, Hosakote, Krishnarajpet and Hunsur, will be conducted from 7 am to 6 pm.

On Thursday, during the hearing in the Supreme Court, the Election Commission told the three-judge Bench headed by Justice NV Ramana that it would defer the by-polls to 15 Assembly constituencies in Karnataka till the top court takes a decision on the 17 disqualified MLAs, who were seeking interim relief to contest the by-polls.

Earlier, the by-polls were scheduled to be held on October 21 and the result was supposed to be announced on October 24.