Bye-elections will take place in five assembly constituencies of Kerala on October 21 this year, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said on Saturday. The elections will be held for the constituencies of Vattiyoorkavu, Ernakulam, Aroor, Konni and Manjeshwaram. The results would be declared on October 24.
The bye-elections will happen on the same day that assembly elections for Maharashtra and Haryana are scheduled.
Four of the five Kerala assembly seats have been left vacant following the general elections in April this year when the members of the assembly had contested and got elected to the Parliament. The fifth assembly seat of Manjeshwaram became vacant when MLA PB Abdul Razak of the UDF’s Muslim League, passed away last October. Vattiyoorkavu was under K Muraleedharan of Congress who became MP of Vadakara. Ernakulam assembly was under Congress’s Hibi Eden who became MP of the Ernakulam Lok Sabha constituency. Aroor MLA Advocate AM Ariff of CPI(M) became MP of Alappuzha. Konni’s Congress MLA Adoor Prakash became the MP of Attingal.
For the last general elections, 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats were won by the Congress-led UDF while only Alappuzha was won by CPI(M)-led LDF. In India, the Left is in power only in Kerala. As a very real fear sets in that the Left in India will soon be completely ineffective, there have been renewed calls for a reunification.
Notification for the elections in Kerala will be issued on September 23. “Last date for filing nomination is September 30, while the scrutiny of the nomination papers will be done on October 1,” Sunil Arora said.
The last date to withdraw nominations is October 7. The deadline for filling up the vacant seats in Kerala is as follows: November 28, 2019 for Konni and Vatiyoorkavu, November 30, 2019 for Ernakulam and Aroor, and January 15, 2020 for Manjeshwaram.