Telangana: EC's decision to help Congress win both MLC seats

Hyderabad: In a shock to the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), the Election Commission has decided to hold separate byelections to the two MLC seats under the MLA quota that fell vacant on January 29 by setting up two ballot boxes, which will allow the MLAs to vote separately.

The decision has come as a shot in the arm for the Congress as it has the required strength to bag both the MLC seats easily. If the election was held using the single ballot box for two seats, the Congress could have won one seat and the BRS the other based on their numbers in the Assembly. With the EC's latest decision, the BRS has no scope to win even a single seat.

Since the Congress victory in both these seats is a foregone conclusion, it remains to be seen whether the BRS would contest the elections or not.

By treating the byelection for two MLC seats mutually independent, the Election Commission has allowed each MLA to cast a vote separately for each of the two candidates. As the Congress has 65 MLAs including one of its ally CPI, the BRS has no chance to win even a single MLC bypoll with a strength of 39 MLAs.

If a single election was held for two seats at a time, the support of 40 MLAs is required to win each seat. In that event, the Congress would have won one seat on its own and the BRS with the support of the AIMIM's seven legislators was expected to win another seat.

There was no clarity on why EC had decided to hold separate elections for the two MLC seats on the same day. Official sources said that this happens in Delhi once in six years, when separate elections are held for three Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant. Three separate elections will be held on January 19.

They said that the National Capital Territory of Delhi was allocated three seats in the Rajya Sabha. The three vacancies in Rajya Sabha from Delhi were being filled by holding three separate elections in accordance with the law on the subject as each of these three vacancies fell under three different cycles, which were determined at the time of the initial constitution of the Rajya Sabha in 1952 itself, they said.

The decision of the EC to hold three separate elections was challenged in the Delhi High Court in 1994 by the Congress, contending that all the three vacancies should be filled by holding a common election as the elections to the Rajya Sabha are held under the system of proportional representation. The Delhi High Court dismissed the petition.

The bypolls for two council seats were necessitated following the resignation of two BRS MLCs Kadiam Srihari and Padi Kaushik Reddy after they got elected in the  recent Assembly polls.

The EC will release the bypoll notification for the two seats on January 11. The last date for filing nominations is January 18. Scrutiny of papers will be conducted on January 19 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is January 22.

Polling will be held from 9 am to 4 pm on January 29, if required, followed by counting of votes at 5 pm and declarations of results on the same day.