Bhopal, July 3 (IANS) The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced the schedule for the Datia Assembly by-election, setting in motion the process to fill the vacant seat.

According to the notification, the bypoll will formally be notified on July 6, with candidates permitted to file their nominations until July 13. Scrutiny of nomination papers will be conducted on July 14, while July 16 has been fixed as the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

Polling will take place on July 30, and the counting of votes will be held on August 3. The entire election process will conclude by August 4.

With the announcement, the Model Code of Conduct has come into immediate effect in the constituency. Voting will be conducted using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units across all polling centres.

The by-election was necessitated after Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti lost his membership of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly following his conviction in a decades-old fraud case.

On April 1, 2026, a special MP-MLA court found Bharti guilty in connection with a 1998 fixed deposit fraud case at the Datia Cooperative Rural Development Bank. Investigators had alleged that bank records were manipulated to extend the fixed deposit tenure from three years to 15 years, enabling interest withdrawals between 1999 and 2011.

At the time, Bharti was serving as chairman of the bank and as a trustee of the institution.

The court sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on April 2, 2026. Although the execution of the sentence was stayed for 60 days to allow him to appeal, the conviction itself remained in force.

In line with Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment in the Lily Thomas case, Bharti’s disqualification took effect immediately upon conviction.

The Madhya Pradesh Assembly Secretariat issued a notification terminating his membership on the same day, declaring the Datia seat vacant and informing the Election Commission.

The constitutional provision under Article 191(1)(e) mandates the disqualification of legislators sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more.

The upcoming bypoll will now determine Bharti’s successor in the Datia Assembly constituency, with political parties expected to intensify their campaigns in the coming weeks.

–IANS

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