SHILLONG, MAY 29: Chief Electoral Officer Dr BDR Tiwari on Friday briefed political parties on the schedule for the biennial Rajya Sabha election in Meghalaya, stating that the process must conclude before June 20 as the term of the sitting MP ends on June 21.
“We had a meeting with the political parties with respect to the conduct of biennial Rajya Sabha election in the state of Meghalaya, as the present tenure of MP Rajya Sabha is due to be end by 21 of June, so, election have to be held latest by the 20 of this June,” Dr Tiwari said.
As per the schedule prescribed by the Election Commission of India, the notification for the election will be issued on June 1. “The notification for this vacancy or conduct of the election will be on the 1 June 2026 on Monday and last date of making nomination is 8 June, scrutiny of nomination will held on the 9 of June and last date for withdrawal of candidates is 11 June 2026,” he said.
“Date of poll is fixed on the 18 June and from 9 am to 4 pm on 18 June, so counting of votes will be on the same day on 18th at 5 pm onwards and the process to be completed is before 20 June 2026,” Dr Tiwari said.
He added that officials from the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly and the CEO’s office inspected the venue on Friday morning.
“In the morning we had a visit of the venue along with the officials from Meghalaya Legislative Assembly and the venue everything has already been visited and it found satisfactory as per the norms, schedule, everything, layout etc. been provided by Election Commission of India.”
Political parties were briefed on nomination requirements and voting procedures. “We briefed the entire process to the political parties regarding filing of nomination including submission of Form 2C, affidavit in Form 26, security deposit, author affirmation, Form A and Form BB in case of party candidate including the provision related with the Form C1 to C8, so, these are the mandatory things,” he said.
The CEO stressed compliance with Supreme Court directions on criminal antecedents. “Special emphasis we have laid on the provision relating to the publicity of the criminal antecedents by the candidate and political parties in compliance with the direction of Supreme Court and instruction issued by Election Commission of India.”
On the voting method, he said, “The system of election under the proportional representation by mean of single transferable vote and the procedure for open ballot voting under the Representation of People Act 1951 is also been briefed to the political parties and they were informed that the members belonging to political party are required to show their marked ballot paper only to the authorised agent of their own political party and not to any other party agent on the day of poll.”
“Independent MLAs are prohibited from showing their ballot paper to any agent,” he added.
Dr Tiwari said the interaction covered all procedural aspects. “Further the participants, we will brief them on the method of recording preferences, validity of ballot papers and the procedure for counting of vote and ascertainment of the quota. So, we had a good interaction and all the queries related to the biennial election of the Raj Sabha already been briefed.”
“Our preparation is, we are fully ready for the conduct of the biennial election of Raj Sabha in the state of Meghalaya,” he said.
Not all parties attended the meeting. “There are several political parties, but not all in the state, so, we tried to approach them even over phone but since due to some preoccupation and other, especially due to the preoccupation, so they are not been able to attend but we already issued notice to all the political parties to attend this meeting,” Dr Tiwari said.
On Lok Sabha elections, he said, “Once the Election Commission of India will announce the schedule, then only it will happen.”
Regarding the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, he said, “Election machinery is always ready, since SIR schedule is already been announced for the state of Meghalaya, we are ready for the SIR in the state.”
“Basically, as present whatever roll, whoever are the member in the e-roll of the Meghalaya, we are going to do that as per this present e-roll and the base e-roll of the 2005, when the previous SIR happened and as per the norm prescribed by Election Commission of India, it will happen.”
“Basically, whoever are the citizen of India, 18 year of age, they are eligible to be voter, so there are certain time if they are residing within the state of Meghalaya, so whoever have the legal eligibility to be the voter, anywhere in the country but they can be voter in one place, not more than one place at a time,” he said.
On documents required for SIR, Dr Tiwari said: “Basically, whoever they have the, at least EPIC along with their, EPIC of the relation like mother, father, whoever are there, so, and along with one, there are the, we already briefed during the SIR, so today, again, mainly this press conference is for the Rajya Sabha Biennial Election.”
“But moreover, all those prescribed documents, everything, those 11 ID proofs along with that, Aadhaar is also the 12th, but it is, some legal limitations are there,” he added.
He said BLOs will soon begin field work. “So, our teams are fully ready, we are going for the training phase, that is more important because BLOs are supposed to go door to door, they have to give the notices and all that work. So, enumeration form have to be given to all the voters for the verification, so, our teams are getting ready for the conduct of SIR.”
