Hyderabad: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced the schedule for the elections for five seats of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council, to be elected by MLAs. They include four seats which are falling vacant on March 29. According to the ECI, the MLCs - Rudraju Padmaraju, Singam Basava Punnaiah, G Thippe Swamy and Nannapaneni Rajakumari will retire on March 29.

The notification for the elections will be issued on March 10; the last date of making nominations will be March 17 and they would be scrutinised on March 18. The last date for withdrawal of candidature will be March 20 and polling will be held on March 27 from 9 am to 4 pm. The counting of votes will be done on March 27 at 5 PM.

As per Section 23 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, the number of seats in the AP Legislative Council to be filled through election by the Members of the Legislative Assembly has been fixed as 17, but under Fourth Schedule read with Section 22(2) of the said Act, the number of Members in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council elected by the members of Legislative Assembly have been allocated as 16, i.e. one short.

Source: THI