EC to hold Bihar election before Nov 29; 65 pending bypolls around same time

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Friday said that the pending by-election to one Lok Sabha and 64 assembly seats spread across 15 states and the Bihar assembly polls will be held "around the same time".

"Considering that General Assembly Elections of Bihar are also due and required to be completed before November 29, 2020, the Commission has decided to conduct all the 65 by-elections and the General Assembly Elections of Bihar around the same time.... Announcement of the schedule of Bihar General Assembly Elections as well as these by-elections will be done by the Commission at appropriate time," a Commission statement said.

"One of the major factors in clubbing them together is the relative ease of movement of central forces and related logistics issues," it said.

Among the 64 vacant assembly seats, 27 are in Madhya Pradesh. One assembly seat each in Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka and West Bengal; two seats each in Assam, Jharkhand, Kerala, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Odisha; five assembly seats in Manipur and eight each in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are also vacant. The bypoll to the Valmiki Nagar Lok Sabha seat in Bihar has been pending.