The Election Commission will hold by-elections to fill vacancies to two Parliamentary Constituencies in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and 14 vacancies in Assembly Constituencies in 11 States on April 17.
Counting for all the by-polls will take place along with counting of votes for the Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, West Bengal and Assam assemblies on May 2, the Commission announced on Tuesday.
The Tirupati Parliamentary constituency in Andhra Pradesh and the Belgaum Parliamentary constituency will have elections apart from Basavakalyan and Maski Assembly constituencies in Karnataka and Nagarjuna Sagar in Telangana. By-polls will also be held for three Assembly constituencies in Rajasthan and one each in eight States including Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram and Uttarakhand.
The Commission said that the decision to hold the by-polls was taken after considering various factors like local festivals, electoral rolls, weather conditions, movement of forces, and the pandemic.
The Commission has decided to use Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) in these by-election in all polling stations. Adequate numbers of EVMs and VVPATs have been made available and all steps have been taken to ensure that the polls are conducted smoothly with the help of these machine, the Commission said.