New Delhi, April 17
The Assembly elections to the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly will be held on May 30, the Election Commission announced here today.
The commission had also decided to hold byelections to three vacant Lok Sabha seats and 12 Assembly seats spread over nine states on May 31, Deputy Election Commissioner and spokesperson A N Jha told newspersons.
The decision in this regard was taken after a threadbare deliberation by the three-member EC panel under the chairmanship of Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh.
The last Assembly elections in Goa were held on June 4, 1999, and the first meeting of the new Assembly was held on June 14, 1999. The Assembly was prorogued on January 29, 2002, and the state Governor dissolved the Assembly on the advice of the Council of Ministers on February 27.
While a formal notification for the Goa elections and the byelections would be made on May 6, the entire election process would be completed by June 3 in Goa and by June 4 in other places, he said.
Counting of votes for the byelections would be taken up on June 2.
The Lok Sabha seats going for byelections would be Amalapuram in Andhra Pradesh, Dumka (ST) in Jharkhand and Akbarpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The Assembly seats going for the byelections were Deverkonda in Andhra Pradesh, Danapur in Bihar, Narasimharaja in Karnataka, Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Bhadrak in Orissa, Saidapet, Vaniyambadi and Acharapakam in Tamil Nadu, Baheri, Jahangirganj and Dabai in Uttar Pradesh and Onda in West Bengal.
The model code of conduct came into immediate effect and would apply to Goa and the whole of the district.
Mr Jha said the Election Commission was bound to notify the election dates for presidential election 60 days before the tenure of the President ended. The tenure of Mr K.R. Narayanan would end on July 24 and the notification on presidential election had to be made on or before May 24.
