The outbreak of the COVID-19 Corona Virus Pandemic has changed everybody's day-to-day lives and normalcy is only now slowly returning after about 3 months of a totally different lifestyle. India was under a nation-wide lockdown and it has still been extended till June 30th but most states have slowly begun to rollback the lockdown restrictions and have given a number of relaxations to the former guidelines. Similarly, most government offices have also begun to function at full efficiency and it looks like the Election Commission has also gotten to working at full swing!

Election Commission announces elections for 18 pending Rajya Sabha seats on June 19th!

There are about 18 Rajya Sabha seats that have been empty but elections could not be held for these seats due to the corona virus outbreak. Now, the Election Commission has stated that the elections for these 18 empty seats would be held on June 19th. The counting of the votes would also happen on the same day! Of these 18 empty seats, 4 each are from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, three each from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two from Jharkand and one each from Meghalaya and Manipur. The Chief Secretaries have been asked by the EC to depute a senior officer from each state to ensure that the COVID-19 containment measures are complied while making arrangements to conduct the elections!