Election Commission Of India has put the Dumka and Bermo assembly by-elections on hold for now. The Commission stated that by-elections for all vacant seats in the country will be announced at the right time. The decision was taken in a meeting held on Friday. This information was provided in a tweet by the Commission spokesperson Shefali Sharan. The Dumka assembly seat has been vacant for more than six months. The scheduled time of six months has also been completed on the 5th of July. Due to coronavirus spread, the law department has agreed not to hold elections till further orders.
On Thursday, deputy secretary of the Commission Pawan Dewan had said that it would not be possible to conduct by-elections in the eight vacant seats till September 7. He had cited corona and floods as the reason and had added that a decision on other issues will be taken in the meeting on Friday. In the meeting on Friday, the Commission put all by-elections in the country on hold till further orders. In Jharkhand as well, by-elections were to be conducted for Dumka and Bermo seats, which have been put on hold for now. The Commission had sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of Jharkhand on June 4 and had made it clear that it is not possible to declare the results by conducting by-elections in Dumka assembly constituency by the deadline of 5th July. Thereafter, the Commission also conveyed this fact to the law department.
On the insistence of the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, engineers of the Electronic Corporation of India are examining the first label of EVMs at Dumka and Bermo. Basic data for these two areas have been made available to the Commission. Dumka assembly constituency was vacated by Hemant Soren in January as he became the CM of Jharkhand and the demise of former minister Rajendra Singh in the Bermo assembly constituency made the seat vacant. Hemant Soren had won elections from both Barhet and Dumka assembly constituencies. He later left the Dumka seat.
In the 2014 assembly elections, both seats had been won by the BJP. From Dumka, BJP’s Louise Marandi had won while in Bermo, Yogeshwar Mahato Batul won. But, in 2019, while Hemant Soren was victorious in the Dumka seat, Rajendra Singh of the Congress won the Bermo seat. Due to this, both the BJP and the ruling coalition are fighting to occupy these seats again. The public trend towards both the camps will also be examined when the assembly by-election is announced after the corona period.
