January 18 is the last date to file nominations for these seats. Voting is on January 29, the counting will be done of the same day.
These elections are for three legislative assembly seats across the two states. Two seats in Telangana and one in Uttar Pradesh became vacant following resignations by their legislators in 2023.
On December 9, 2023, two MLAs — Kadiyam Srihari, Telangana Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLA from the Ghanpur Station constituency, and MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy from the Huzurabad constituency — had resigned, inside a week of their winning the polls. They were supposed to be in office till November 30, 2027.
In Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Dr Dinesh Dharma had resigned on September 30, 2023, after he was elected to the Rajya Sabha. His term in the State Assembly was to run up to January 30, 2027.
The EC notice also issued instructions to all involved that the broad Covid guidelines be adhered to while conducting the polls. It may be mentioned here that these guidelines were issued in October 2023 when five states went to the hustings.
