SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, January 5: The remaining tenure of the Jharkhand Assembly was over a year when JMM MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad resigned from the Gandey Assembly seat on December 31, 2023.
The Election Commission website says that the term of the 5th Jharkhand Assembly is from January 6 2019 to January 5 2025.
Election Commission
“It implied that the Election Commission is bound to hold by-elections in Gandey within six months as mandated by Section 151A of the Representation of People’s Act,” said a senior Assembly official.
Notably, the Jharkhand Assembly declared the Gandey Assembly constituency vacant from December 31 2023, after JMM MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad resigned from the House.
CM’s plan
His resignation was aimed at keeping a constituency vacant for Kalpana Soren to become a member of the House in case Chief Minister Hemant Soren was forced to resign either in the office of profit case or any punitive action from the ED for defying as many as seven summonses in the Ranchi land scam case.
“Since Kalpana Soren, born outside Jharkhand, can’t fight election from a seat reserved for tribals, a safe general seat was vacated to facilitate her easy entry in the Jharkhand assembly,” pointed out a political expert.
Also Read: Jharkhand: BJP, JMM locked in legal battle over holding by-poll in Gandey
The BJP, however, threw a spanner, saying the result of the 5th Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha was declared on 23.12.2019, and Sarfaraz Ahmad resigned from his office and was accepted w.e.f. 31.12.2023.
Click to visit EC website: https://www.eci.gov.in/elections/term-of-houses/
“So, the election at Gandey Constituency for the remaining period cannot happen since less than one year is left of the whole tenure of the 5th Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha,” it said, counting the tenure of the House from December 27 2019.
Now, it is up to the Election Commission as to how it calculated the remaining tenure of the Jharkhand Assembly following Ahmad’s resignation.
Article 172
Article 172 of the Constitution: Every Legislative Assembly of every State, unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting…
The Assembly’s first meeting was held on January 6, 2020, and continued till January 8. So, the tenure of the 19th Assembly Assembly will be counted from January 6 2020, rather than December 27, as pointed out by the BJP.
Section 151
Section 151A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 mandates the Election Commission to fill the casual vacancies in the Houses of Parliament and State Legislatures through bye-elections within six months from the date of occurrence of the vacancy provided that the remainder of the term of a member about a vacancy is one year or more.
