J&K assembly bypolls delayed; April deadline missed

In the aftermath of the April 22 Pahalgam attack in Jammu & Kashmir, the deadline for holding bypolls to two key assembly seats in the Union Territory has been missed. ET has learnt that the Election Commission of India was planning to club the J&K bypolls with half a dozen other pending bypolls a month later due to procedural reasons. It had conveyed this to the law ministry.

However, the Pahalgam attack is bound to impact the timeline for J&K bypolls. The assembly constituencies of Budgam and Nagrota have been vacant since October 2024. As per election laws, bypolls should be held within six months of the vacancy - that is, by the end of April 2025.

Budgam was rendered vacant immediately after the J&K assembly elections in 2024 when chief minister Omar Abdullah chose to retain the Ganderbal constituency. The seat has been vacant since October 21, 2024.


Nagrota fell vacant on October 31, 2024, after the death of sitting MLA Devender Singh Rana.

Section 151A of RPA
The rulebook requires the ECI to 'certify' that the situation is not conducive to hold bypolls within the stipulated period. Section 151A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, mandates the ECI to fill the casual vacancies in the Houses of Parliament and state legislatures through byelections within six months from the date of occurrence of the vacancy, provided that the remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is one year or more.

In the case of J&K, where a new assembly came into place in October 2024 with a full five-year term to go, this is not applicable. ECI, however, can postpone a bypoll if, in consultation with the central government, it "certifies that it is difficult to hold the by-election within the said period".

This provision has earlier been invoked to postpone bypolls in several cases, such as RK Nagar in Tamil Nadu (due to rampant money flow) and Anantnag in J&K (where there was a two-year vacancy due to the highly sensitive security scenario).

While security considerations are known to considerably impact poll schedules in J&K, after a successful round of parliamentary and assembly elections in J&K in 2024, it was widely expected that bypolls would be scheduled alongside Delhi assembly elections in February 2025.

The poll panel, however, then held that it was not possible to do so due to snowy conditions and inclement weather in J&K at that time. The ECI then had indicated that the bypolls would be held before the April 20, 2025 deadline, within six months of the vacancies having arisen. Ground preparations have also been underway in J&K for the same over the last 2-3 months.

The number of polling stations in the constituency were also increased from 156 to 173 in Budgam and from 145 to 150 in Nagrota in keeping with the EC guidelines.

The Special Summary Revision (SSR) in the two assembly constituencies was also started on April 8 and concluded by April 24. The final roll will be published on May 5. The delayed electoral roll revision also impacted the bypoll calendar, it is learnt.