The election commission has announced the schedule for byelections to 7 assembly seats in the state of which 6 are from Telangana.
The elections to these seats would be held on 18th March and the counting of votes would be on 21st March. A formal notification would be released on 22nd of February. Nominations would be accepted till 29th February.
The six assembly seats that would be going for bypolls are Nagar Kurnool, Kollapur, Mahabubnagar, Station Ghanpur, Kamareddy and Adilabad.
These elections are necessitated by the resignation of 5 MLAs belonging to Congress and TDP over the indifference of their respective parties on Telangana statehood issue. The Mahabubnagar assembly seat fell vacant sue to the demise of Rajeshwar Reddy, an independent MLA.
Nagam Janardhan Reddy from Nagar Kurnool is likely to contest as independent with support from Telangana Joint Action Committee. Jupalli Krishna Rao from Kollapur, Rajaih from Station Ghanpur and Gampa Goverdhan from Kamareddy and Jogu Ramanna from Adilabad will be contesting this election on Telangana Rashtra Samithi ticket.
It is not clear about who will contest from the Mahabubnagar assembly seat.
For the ruling Congress and opposition Telugu Desam party, the writing on the wall is clear. They are going to lose these seats by a huge margin. Observers are keen to know if these two parties can manage to retain their deposits at least.