Shillong, July 27: The Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for holding bye election to Ranikor Assembly constituency, and the polling will be held together with South Tura seat on August 23, and counting of votes on August 27.

The decision of the Commission to hold the bye elections together in both Ranikor and South Tura constituencies came after the United Democratic Party, a partner of the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government sent a petition to the Commission questioning the reason for not holding the bye election to Ranikor together with South Tura.

On July 23, the bye election to South Tura was announced by the Commission.

The Election Commission said that the model code of conduct shall come into force with immediate effect in the (districts) in which the whole or any part of the Assembly constituency going for bye election is included subject to partial modification.

The Commission said that it decided to hold the bye election to fill this vacancy after taking into consideration various factors like local festivals, electoral rolls, weather conditions.

The date for issuing of notification is July 30, which is also the day when filing of nominations will begin for the bypoll in Ranikor and South Tura, and the last date for filing of nominations is August 6.

Scrutiny of nominations will be held on August 7 and the last date for withdrawal of candidatures is August 9. The election process should be completed by August 29.

Chief Minister, Conrad Kongkal Sangma who is the Lok Sabha MP from Tura parliamentary seat, will contest the bye election to South Tura Assembly seat, which has remained vacant after his sister, Agatha Kongkal Sangma quit as MLA of the constituency.

Conrad, who is also the national president of the National People’s Party (NPP) has to get elected as MLA to continue as Chief Minister of Meghalaya. The NPP is leading the six-party coalition Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government under the Chief Ministership of Conrad.

If elected as MLA of South Tura, Conrad has to quit as MP. But the Election Commission might avoid a bye election to the Tura Parliamentary.

Sources said that according to rulebook, any parliamentary seat that goes vacant when there is less than a year left for the general elections, is kept waiting for the next Lok Sabha polls.

The current Lok Sabha held its first sitting on June 4, 2014, and any vacancy that may arise in a Lok Sabha seat after June 3, 2018 will not be considered for a bypoll.

“But any Lok Sabha seat that may have gone vacant before June 3, 2018, such seat will have to be filled up through a bye election,” sources said.

This means that Tura Lok Sabha seat will not go to bypoll even if the seat remains vacant, but has to wait for the next Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

The Ranikor Assembly seat is remaining vacant after senior Congress legislator, Martin M. Danggo resigned as MLA on June 21, after the MDA government decided to make Ranikor a full-fledged Civil Sub Division.

Danggo has joined NPP and he will contest the bye election to Ranikor on NPP ticket.

Ranikor has a total of 29,670 general electors spread across 65 polling booths which include 15,183 male and 14,487 female voters.

Including 15 service voters, the total voters in Ranikor is 29,685.

Rangthong polling station with 817 voters, is the biggest polling booth, while Nongbahjynrin-Mawthabah with 63 voters, is the smallest polling booth.