Election Commission fixes July 10 for bypolls to 13 seats in 7 assemblies

NEW DELHI: Election Commission on Monday announced by-elections to 13

assembly seats

across seven states, including four in West Bengal. Polling for all the seats - which fell vacant upon death or resignation of incumbent MLAs - will be held on July 10, followed by counting on July 13.
The assembly seats going for

bypolls

are Rupauli (Bihar), Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda and Maniktala in West Bengal; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu; Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; and Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh.

Three of the seats in West Bengal where by-polls are scheduled were last held by BJP MLAs who switched over to Trinamool Congress and unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha polls after resigning from the state assembly. The bypoll for the Maniktala seat was necessitated following the demise of state minister Sadhan Pandey.

Himachal had on June 1 seen bypolls in six assembly constituencies, of which Congress won four and the BJP, two. This had put the Congress in a comfortable position, taking the former's tally to 38 in the 68-member assembly. The bypoll announced on Monday are for three seats vacated by independents Hosyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh) after they joined the BJP a few months back.
BJP only recently won all four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh.
As per the poll time-table announced, the notification for the bypolls will be issued on June 14 and nominations papers are to be accepted till June 21. The papers will be scrutinised on June 24, with the last date for their withdrawal being June 26.