EC announces Rajya Sabha Biennial election schedule

New Delhi, Oct 13 (UNI) The Election Commission today announced the election schedule to fill up twelve vacancies to the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) one each from Uttarakhand and West Bengal and the rest ten from Uttar Pradesh.

According to an EC release here today, the notification for the elections will be issued on November 3, last date of making nominations is November 10 and the scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on November 11. The last date for withdrawal of candidates is fixed for November 14. The poll if necessary will be held on November 11. The counting of votes will be taken up on the same day November 21 and the entire election process will be completed by November 24, 2008.

The election became necessary as all these members retire on November 25, 2008 except for Mr Debabrata Biswas of West Bengal who resigned from the house on September 23, earlier this year.

The members who are retiring are Harish Chandra Singh (Uttarakhand), Dr Akhilesh Das- resigned on May 8, 2008, Abu Asim Azmi, Amar Singh , Isam Singh - disqualified on July 4, 2008, Udai Pratap Singh, Gandhi Azad, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Rajnath Singh, Veer Singh and Shahid Siddiqui all from UP .

However, the four seats of Jammu and Kashmir fell vacant in November this year but the election could not be conducted as the State assembly has been dissolved.

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