The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday announced that the election to the Vellore Lok Sabha constituency, which was countermanded due to excess use of money power, will now be held on August 5 while bypoll for the Patkura Assembly of Odisha will be held on July 20.
It was for the first time that the election to a Lok Sabha constituency was cancelled over use of money power. Earlier, the bypoll to the RK Nagar Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu was cancelled in April, 2017, following seizure of huge cash, allegedly meant for bribing voters. Similarly, the election to the Patkura assembly was postponed due to death of the candidate. Later the poll was postponed due to Fani cyclone.
Polling for the Lok Sabha seat was scheduled for April 18, along with the other constituencies of Tamil Nadu, but was cancelled on April 16 following the recovery of a huge amount of cash allegedly from an associate of a DMK leader.
The EC also announced the election date to Patkura Assembly election under Kendrapara Parliamentary constituency. Polls to the seat, which was earlier postponed due to the demise of BJD candidate Bed Prakash Agarwalla, is now set to be conducted on July 20, while the counting of votes will be held on July 24, 2019.
In an official release, the Commission said that the after taking into consideration various factors like, festivals, electoral rolls and others, it took the decision to hold the adjourned poll to fill the Patkura seat. Later, the ECI postponed the election further for another 60 days in view of cyclone 'Fani' that hit the state on May 3. With the notification, the model code of conduct came into force from Thursday.