Bypoll for Rae Bareli LS seat, Deeg assembly seat on May 8:EC

New Delhi, Apr 3 (UNI) A byelection to the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, vacated by Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy, will be held on May 8, the Election Commission announced today.

The notification for the bypoll will be issued on April 13, marking the opening of nominations, the Commission said.

Nominations will close on April 20, while scrutiny will take place on April 21. The last date for withdrawal of nomination is April 24.

Counting of votes will be taken up up on May 11.

Under the same schedule, byelection to the Deeg assembly constituency of Rajasthan will also be held, the commission said.

The bypoll schedule for Rae Bareli and Deeg coincides with that of the single phase assembly poll in Tamil Nadu and the second and last round of polling in Pondicherry that would cover three seats in the 30-member assembly of the Union Territory. In all, four states -- Kerala, West Bengal and Assam, besides TN -- and Pondicherry are witnessing assembly elections in April/May.

Ms Gandhi had quit the Rae Bareli seat on March 23, a day after the Budget session of Parliament had adjourned sine die, stating that she had been ''immensely hurt'' by the opposition charge that the government was making all efforts to issue an ordinance on the office of profit issue only to ''save me.'' She had also resigned as the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC), allegedly an office of profit that had raised the demand for her disqualification. Irrespective of her resignation, President A P J Abdul Kalam has forwarded the NDA petition seeking her disqualification to the Election Commission.

In the 2004 Parliamentary elections to constitute the 14th Lok Sabha, Ms Gandhi had won the Rae Bareli seat by a margin of 2,49,765 votes, defeating her nearest Samajwadi Party nominee Ashok Kumar Singh. She had polled 3,78,107 votes, representing 58.75 per cent of the total votes polled. The SP candidate could manage only 19.94 per cent, followed by Mr Rajesh Yadav (BSP) with 8.94 per cent and Mr Girish Narayan Panday (BJP) with 4.86 per cent. In all, there were 16 contestants for the seat.

There was some confusion in the press note issued by the Election Commisssion which announced the schedule for the bypoll in Rae Bareli and Deeg as the release also had the names of the 10 Lok Sabha seats that have fallen vacant following the disqualification of MPs in the cash-for-question scam.

''The Commission had considered the matter of holding by-elections against all of above vacancies and finalised the schedule for holding these by-elections as follows,'' the release said, creating an impression that the 10 other seats were also going to the polls.

However, a paragraph in between made it clear that the Supreme Court had asked the EC not to hold election in the 10 constituencies until further order from the apex court in view of the MPs challenging their disqualification.

UNI SN/SU AT HS1754