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In no hurry to hold Wayanad bypoll: CEC
Chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar cited Section 151 of the Representation of People Act and said ECI had six months to hold the poll.
Chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said on Wednesday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) was in no hurry to hold a bypoll in Kerala’s Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, which is vacant after Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the Lower House, because the Congress leader has 30 days to exercise judicial remedies.
Gandhi was disqualified by the Lok Sabha secretariat last week after he was convicted of criminal defamation by a Surat court for comments made ahead of the 2019 general elections on the Modi surname. The court sentenced him to two years in prison but gave him 30 days to appeal the judgment.
“There is no hurry, we will wait. There is no hurry to do it before exhausting that particular remedy which the trial court had accorded. We will take a call after that,” Kumar said.
Kumar cited Section 151 of the Representation of People Act and said ECI had six months to hold the poll. Kumar said Gandhi had 30 days from the date of his disqualification and that the poll panel will take a call accordingly.
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“We were informed of his disqualification on March 23,” Kumar said on the sidelines of a press conference announcing the Karnataka assembly election schedule.
The conviction and two-year jail term renders Gandhi unfit to enter either House of Parliament for eight years. But this can be reversed if he can get the conviction overturned or the sentenced reduced to under two years by a higher court.
Kumar said the law also states that if the remainder of the term is less than one year, then the election will not be held. The CEC said that in Wayanad, the remainder of the term was more than a year.
