The Election Commission of India (EC) could take its time to conduct the deferred byelection to the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly constituency. The apex poll body is under no compulsion to conduct the poll before June 4, when the six-month period of vacancy for the constituency expires, according to former Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta.
Referring to Section 151A of the Representation of People Act, which deals with the time limit for filling vacancies, Mr. Gupta said that although the rules stipulated that the vacancy had to be filled within six months, the Election Commission, in consultation with the Central government, may as well decide that it would be difficult to hold the byelection within the stipulated period of time.
Even now, the byelection to the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency, which was scheduled for April 16, has been postponed to May 25, he pointed out.
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Past instance
The byelection to the Garhwal Lok Sabha seat (then in Uttar Pradesh and now in Uttarakhand) in May 1982, two years after the vacancy arose, is a case in point. On one occasion, the Commission had declared the polling void and on the other, it had postponed the polling. This was well before August 1996 when Section 151A was adopted into law.
On the alleged money distribution in R.K. Nagar, Mr. Gupta wondered whether the assumption that corrupt practices would be resorted to in the event of polling could be grounds for not holding the election at all.
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