After over four years, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir.With the new Legislative Assembly in place, the ECI has scheduled polling for October 24, 2025, from 9 am to 4 pm, with counting the same evening.
The notification will be issued on October 6, while October 13 is the last date for filing nominations. Scrutiny will be held on October 14, and candidates can withdraw till October 16.Four seats have remained vacant since February 2021 following the retirement of Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Shamsher Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Nazir Ahmad Laway. The vacancies could not be filled earlier due to the absence of an elected Assembly.
The Commission clarified that the four vacancies will be filled through three separate elections, as each vacancy belongs to a different election cycle.The Commission has saidthese will be held in three separate cycles, as the vacancies fall under different categories and timelines. This is in line with a 1994 Delhi High Court judgment, which ruled that such seats must be filled separately and not through a combined poll.
Pertinently, ECI has noted that the tenure of the newly elected members will depend on the outcome of a case pending before the Supreme Court on similar matters.Observers will be deputed to J&K to oversee the process. With the announcement, political activity in the Union Territory is expected to intensify, as major parties gear up for representation in the Upper House.
As of Feb 2021 elections to the 4 vacant seats from Jammu and Kashmir were not held in February as the union territory was under President's rule and the assembly had been dissolved. It was expected that the union territory will get its representation as soon as the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly is elected.However, it has now been a long time since democratically elected government is in place in J&K, yet till date no steps were taken, even though political parties have been asking for it. It is for the same reason no J&K representative from the Upper House could participate in elections for the post of Vice President recently.
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