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EC approaches SC for holding bypolls to 10 LS seats

April 01, 2006 19:13 IST

The Election Commission Saturday approached the Supreme Court to seek permission to hold byelections to the 10 Lok Sabha seats, which had fallen vacant after expulsion of members in the wake of the 'cash-for-queries' scam.

The plea is likely to come up for hearing Monday, EC sources said.

Under the Representation of the People Act, the seats are required to be filled by June 22, when the six months period since the vacancies arose would be over.

If the commission gets the go-ahead, the byelection for Rae Barelli, the seat vacated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, could also be clubbed along with the 10 seats, the sources indicated.

The apex court had earlier asked the commission not to initiate the process for filling the vacancies created by the expulsion of 10 Lok Sabha members in the wake of the 'cash-for-queries' scam without its prior permission.

The 10 expelled members are Narendra Kumar Kushwaha (Bahujan Samaj Party), Annasaheb M K Patil (Bharatiya Janata Party), Manoj Kumar (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Y G Mahajan (BJP), Pradeep Gandhi (BJP), Suresh Chandel (BJP), Ramsevak Singh (Congress), Lal Chandra Kol (Bahujan Samaj Party), Rajaram Pal (BSP) and Chandra Pratap Singh (BJP).

Sonia, who quit last week in the wake of opposition campaign on the issue, has made it clear that she would seek re-election from Rae Bareli.

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