Srinagar – After more than three years of anticipation, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has finally announced the long-awaited biennial elections for Jammu & Kashmir’s four vacant Rajya Sabha seats. The voting is scheduled for October 24, bringing a wave of political significance to the region after years of administrative restructuring.
According to the official notification released by the ECI, the process will formally begin with the issuance of the election notification on October 6. The last date for filing nominations is October 13, with scrutiny on October 14. Voting will be conducted on October 24 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and votes will be counted the same day at 5:00 PM.
These four Rajya Sabha seats were earlier occupied by Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Shamsher Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Nazir Ahmed Laway, all of whom completed their terms in February 2021. Since then, the seats have remained vacant, primarily due to the absence of a valid legislative assembly in Jammu & Kashmir following the region’s reorganization into Union Territories under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.
Now, with the Legislative Assembly of J&K restored, the foundation for democratic representation has been reestablished. The ECI has laid out that three elections will be held: one each for the members who retired on February 10, 2021, and a combined election for the two members who retired on February 15, 2021. This arrangement follows a 1994 Delhi High Court ruling, which upheld that separately categorized seats must be filled through independent elections.
However, the ECI also mentioned that the tenure of the newly elected members may be influenced by the outcome of an ongoing Supreme Court case (SLP(C) No. 17123/2015) involving the Election Commission itself.
