The bye-election to the Atmakur Assembly constituency will be held on June 23, the Election Commission said on Wednesday, May 25. The Atmakur Assembly seat fell vacant after the demise of former Andhra Pradesh Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy, who died of cardiac arrest on February 21. Bye-elections to three Lok Sabha and six other Assembly seats across five states will also be held on the same day. Votes will be counted on June 26 and the notification for the bye-polls will be issued on May 30, the Election Commission said in a statement.
The three Lok Sabha seats are Azamgarh and Rampur in Uttar Pradesh — vacated by Samajwadi Party leaders Akhilesh Yadav and Mohd Azam Khan respectively after winning the Assembly polls — and Sangrur in Punjab, vacated by AAP’s Bhagwant Mann who became the Chief Minister of the state after the recently-held assembly polls there. Among the six Assembly seats where bye-elections will be held other than Atmakur, is Rajinder Nagar in Delhi, vacated by Raghav Chadha of the AAP who became a Rajya Sabha member recently.
The remaining Assembly seats where bye-polls will be held are Mandar in Jharkhand, and Agartala, Town Bordowali, Surma and Jubarajnagar in Tripura. The bye-polls will help the poll panel fill up vacancies in the electoral college which elects the President of India. The presidential election is likely to be held sometime in July.
Mekapati Goutham Reddy, who was 50 years old when he passed away suddenly, was a two-time MLA from Atmakur constituency in Nellore district. He held the portfolios of Industries, Commerce, IT & Skill Development in the Andhra Pradesh government. Goutham Reddy was the son of former Member of Parliament Mekapati Rajamohan Redd,y who has represented the Nellore Lok Sabha constituency several times. On the morning of February 21, he was taken to a hospital in Hyderabad after he suddenly collapsed at his home. The hospital said he was in cardiac arrest on arrival.
With PTI inputs