The Hindu : Front Page : Rae Bareli by-election on May 8

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 04, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Rae Bareli by-election on May 8

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi : By-election to the Rae Bareli constituency in Uttar Pradesh will be held on May 8. The Election Commission announced this on Monday.

The seat was vacated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, following the "office of profit" controversy. She also quit the post of Chairperson of the National Advisory Council.

The Commission also announced by-election to the Deeg Assembly constituency in Rajasthan the same day. The final phase of Assembly elections in five States is also scheduled for the day.

The notification for the by-elections will be issued on April 13 and the last date for filing of nominations is April 20. Scrutiny will be made the following day.

The last date for withdrawal is April 24. Counting for both Rae Bareli and Deeg would take place on May 11.

"No political motive"

Talking to presspersons, Deputy Commissioner of the Commission Anand Kumar denied that there was any political motive in the Rae Bareli election decision.

Asked "what is the tearing hurry for the Commission to announce the by-election to Rae Bareli within a few days of Ms. Gandhi resigning her Lok Sabha seat," he said it had been the consistent policy of the Commission to fill the vacancies at the earliest.

Mr. Kumar said the Commission approached the Supreme Court on Monday morning and sought permission to hold by-elections to the 10 other vacant Lok Sabha seats too.

"However as the Commission has already submitted a plan to the Court with regard to the 10 seats which, the Court, would consider in July, we (Commission) decided to conduct elections to the Rae Bareli seat,'' he said.

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