Jaipur: The Election Commission on Tuesday fixed April 17 as the date for by-polls to three of the four vacant Assembly seats in Rajasthan, according to an official.
The by-polls to these seats were necessitated by the demise of sitting legislators.
The constituencies where the by-polls will be held are Sahada (Bhilwara), Sujangarh (Churu) and Rajsamand.
The fourth seat which is vacant right now is Vallabhnagar (Udaipur). The Election Commission has not announced the poll schedule for it.
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According to the election schedule, the nomination process will start from March 23 and the last date for filing papers will be March 30.
The scrutiny of nomination papers will be held on March 31. The nomination can be withdrawn by April 3.
Polling will be held on 17 April and the counting will take place on May 2.
According to Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta, candidates can also file their nomination papers online this time, an arrangement made given the coronavirus pandemic.
The three Assembly constituencies have 7,43,802 voters, of which around 3.80 lakh are men and 3.63 lakh women.
Gupta said 1,145 polling stations have been set up in the three constituencies. Of these, 387 polling booths are in Sahada, 418 in Sujangarh and 340 in Rajsamand.
He said voters above 80 years of age, those in quarantine and people with more than 40 per cent disability will be able to vote through ballot papers.
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Sahada, Sujangarh (SC) and Rajsamand seats were represented by Kailash Trivedi, Master Bhanwarlal Meghwal (both from the Congress) and Kiran Maheshwari (BJP), respectively.
Master Bhanwarlal Meghwal, who was the social justice and empower minister in the state government, had died due to a brain stroke.
Kailash Trivedi and Kiran Maheshwari died from coronavirus.
Trivedi passed away in October while Meghwal and Maheshwari died in November last year.
The Vallabhnagar (Udaipur) seat, for which the election programme has not been announced, was held by Congress MLA Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who passed away in January this year.
At present, the ruling Congress has 104 members in the state Assembly while the BJP has 71 MLAs.
Thirteen MLAs are Independents while the RLP has three members in the House, BTP 2, CPI (M) 2 and the RLD 1.
PTI
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