The Telangana government has opposed the proposal of the Election Commission of India to conduct the pending elections for six vacancies in Telangana legislative council under MLAs’ quota in the third week of August.
Early this week, the EC called the opinion of the Telangana and AP governments on the conduct of these pending elections since the Coronavirus pandemic is on the wane and all the activities have been taking place normally.
However, the Telangana government said the situation was not yet conducive for the conduct of MLC elections in the state now, because the official machinery is still busy with tackling the Covid-19 situation in the state. It requested that the MLC elections be postponed for a few more weeks.
The EC also asked the opinion of Andhra Pradesh government for the conduct of pending elections to three MLC seats. But it is not known what the response was from the AP government.
The elections were originally scheduled to be held in May due to the expiry of the term of the sitting MLCs of AP and Telangana by May 31 and June 3 respectively, but the Election Commission of India postponed them indefinitely due to outbreak of second wave of Covid-19.
As per the provisions of Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the seats of State Legislative Council which are going to be vacant on expiration of the term of the members, are required to be filled up by holding biennial election before the said expiration of the term.
The Telangana state government’s reluctance to conduct the MLC elections is expected to cast shadow on the by-elections to Huzurabad assembly seat as well.
If the Election Commissions accepts the Telangana government’s request on the MLC polls, it might not consider the Huzurabad by-poll as well.