All eyes and ears were glued to the TV sets when Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora started to speak about the elections and its schedule on Friday evening.
But the announcement missed the mention of Belagavi parliamentary bypoll and other bye-elections in the state of Karnataka when the CEO specifically did not announce the schedule for Karnataka but merely said it will be out in a separate notification later.
As per the report by The New Indian Express, With Arora stating that the Belagavi parliamentary bypoll will be held along with Tirupathi on April 6, there is an expectation that all the three Assembly bypolls too would be held on that day. He did not specifically announce the schedule for Karnataka, but merely said it will be out in a separate notification later.
The BSY govt is to present its budget soon and this could have been the cause of delay in making the announcement of the dates.
The New Indian Express also makes a similar mention, Analysts wondered if this gives the BJP an advantage in Karnataka as it gives the party-ruled government an opportunity to make poll-targeted announcements in the budget on March 8. The delay could also be a ploy as once the poll dates are out, the model code of conduct would kick in, preventing the government from coming out with schemes for these poll-bound constituencies, they pointed out.