Election Commission of India issues notification for bye-poll 2024 Legislative Assembly Constituencies

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has formally issued notification for holding the bye-elections in the five Legislative Assembly Constituencies (LACs) of Dholai (reserved for SC), Sidli (reserved for ST), Bongaigaon, Behali, and Samaguri on November 13, 2024. With the notification issued, candidates can now file their nomination papers. After the ECI’s poll notification, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Assam (CEO, Assam) issued another notification today in this connection.  According to the notification, the last date of filing nominations is October 25, the date of scrutiny of nominations is October 28, the last date for withdrawal of candidature is October 30, the date of the poll is November 13, the date of counting is set for November 23, and the date before which the election shall be completed is November 25, 2024.

Addressing a press conference at the Assam Secretariat, CEO Anurag Goel said, “Altogether, there are 9,10,665 electors in the five LACs. In Dholai, there are 1,97,642 electors; in Sidli, 1,17,236; in Bongaigaon, 1,82,354; Behali, 1,32,579; and Samaguri has 1,80,854 electors. There will be 1078 polling stations set up in five constituencies, with 208 polling stations in Dholai, 273 in Sidli, 246 in Bongaigaon, 154 in Behali, and 197 in Samaguri. Altogether, there are 3788 electors who are aged 85-plus. They will be able to avail voting-at-home facility.”

The polling hours of the bye-election are from 7 AM to 5 PM on November 13, and the counting will take place on November 23 from 8 AM.

The CEO further said, “As per ECI guidelines, the districts headed for the bye-election are Cachar, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Biswanath, and Nagaon. The MCC has already been enforced in these districts. To monitor the enforcement of MCC, sufficient numbers of flying squad teams and static surveillance teams have been formed.”

The polling will be done through EVMs, and these will be commissioned from November 4. Significantly, the bye-election in the five LACs will be conducted as per pre-delimitation areas.

The bye-elections have been necessitated because of the resignations by MLAs Parimal Suklabaidya (Dholai), Jayanta Basumatary (Sidli), Phani Bhusan Choudhury (Bongaigaon), Ranjit Dutta (Behali), and Rakibul Hussain (Samaguri). All five MLAs have been elected to the 18th Lok Sabha in the last General Election.

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