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In no hurry to hold by-poll, Rahul Gandhi has 30 days for remedies: CEC
Kumar said that Gandhi has 30 days from the date of his disqualification and that they will take a call accordingly
Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday said the Election Commission of India (ECI) was in no hurry to hold the by-poll to Kerala’s Wayanad Lok Sabha seat left vacant after Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as the Congress leader has 30 days to exercise judicial remedies.
He cited Section 151 of the Representation of People Act and said the ECI has six months to hold the poll. Kumar said Gandhi has 30 days from the date of his disqualification and that they will take a call accordingly. “We were informed of his disqualification on March 23,” Kumar said on the sidelines of a press conference for the announcement of the Karnataka assembly election schedule.
Gandhi was on Friday last disqualified as a Lok Sabha member a day after a Surat court pronounced him guilty of criminal defamation for a remark he made ahead of the 2019 general elections about the Modi surname.
The move sparked a wave of condemnation. The conviction and two-year jail term renders Gandhi unfit to enter either House of Parliament for a period of eight years. But this can be reversed if he can get the conviction overturned or reduced by a higher court.
The development came a year before national elections and months ahead of assembly polls where the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party square off against each other.
Gandhi is the third Member of Parliament to be disqualified from the Lower House during its current term. Samajwadi Party lawmaker Azam Khan was disqualified in March last year and Nationalist Congress Party’s Mohammad Faizal in January.
The ECI in January withheld the by-poll to the Lakshadweep Lok Sabha seat days after the Kerala high court suspended the conviction and the sentence of Faizal in a 2009 attempt to murder case.
