Election Commission will hold by-elections in four Assembly seats along with general elections in Uttar Pradesh. State electoral officer Umesh Sinha said on Wednesday that the four Assembly seats where by-elections would be conducted are Unnao, Fatehpur, Rampurkhash and Vishwanathganj constituencies.
While polling for Unnao and Fatehpur would be held on April 30 and the remaining two would go to the polls on May 7, as per the polling schedule. By-elections for Unnao, Fatehpur and Vishwanathganj would be held due to the death of Samajwadi Party MlAs while the Rampurkhas seat was vacated by Congress MlA Pramod Tiwari after being elected to Rajya Sabha.
Meanwhile, Sinha claimed that this would be for the first time, the entire 100 per cent of the voters in Uttar Pradesh would use their election photo identity cards (EPICs) during the lok Sabha elections.
“Only 100 voters out of the total 13.43 crore voters were yet to get the EPIC and they will be given by March 9,” claimed Sinha. He said that these 100 people have been identified and they will be provided EPICs by this week end.
He said that colour EPICs would also be distributed to new voters from March 15. Giving details of the lok Sabha elections of the State, Sinha said that election model code would be strictly followed and any violation would attract severe punishment.
“The political parties have to take prior permission for all their public function besides EC would review from case to case about the political activities during the festival of Holi,” he said.
He was also non committal about covering of the elephants statues in lucknow and Noida like done in the 2012 assembly elections. :”We will strictly monitor the paid news issues during the elections while all the activities of the candidates and other politicians would be screened round the clock,” he said.
The CEO said that for the first time the political parties will have to give their financial implication of all the poll promises in their manifesto. In order to give another opportunity to the left out people to enroll in the voters list, EC is holding voters camps at all the polling booths in the State on March 9 where people can check their names in the list or people can enroll them in the list.