Counting of votes for 4 MLC seats postponed to Nov 10

Bengaluru: The Election Commission (EC) has postponed the counting of votes for four legislative council seats to November 10 in the wake of the Assembly bypolls on November 3. The Under Secretary of the EC, Prafull Awasthi wrote to the Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar on Saturday to this effect.

The EC said the counting of votes would now take place on November 10 instead of November 2 and the election process should be completed before November 13. In exercise of the powers vested under Article 324 of the Constitution read with section 153 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the EC made the amendment in its previous notification about conducting the biennial elections.

According to the EC, the Congress party had approached it on Saturday requesting to postpone the counting after November 3 because of the byelections from Sira and Rajarajeshwarinagar Assembly constituencies in the state of Karnataka.

The Returning Officers for the biennial elections have said the counting of votes for the biennial elections can be conducted on November 10 along with the counting for byelections and thereby recommended the commission to conduct the counting of votes for the biennial elections on November 10, the EC said in its letter.