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The Election Commission on Tuesday announced that the polling for the Karanpur Assembly seat in Sriganganagar of Rajasthan will be conducted on January 5, 2024. The polling for the seat had been suspended following the death of Congress candidate and incumbent MLA Gurmeet Singh Koonar. The counting of votes for the seat is slated for January 8.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the majority of seats in Rajasthan on December 3 and will be forming government in the state regardless of the Karanpur poll results, had earlier fielded Surenderpal Singh for the seat.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which secured no seats in its second elections in Rajasthan, had named Prithipal Singh and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which secured two seats, had fielded Ashok Kumar. Other parties, including NJMP, fielded Krishan Kumar, while SAD(A)(SSM) fielded Balkaran Singh. Neither party has secured any seats in the 200-seat Assembly. Congress, whose MLA has now passed, is yet to name a new candidate for the seat.
Gurmeet Singh Kooner died on November 15, 10 days before the state went to polls, at the age of 75. The three-time MLA was admitted to the Geriatric Medicine Ward of the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi on November 12. According to a report by PTI, Kooner died of sepsis with septic shock and renal disease. He had also been suffering from hypertension.
Kooner had won his first Assembly elections in 1998 from Karanpur with a Congress ticket. In 2008, he contested as an independent candidate and won again. In 2018, Koonar once again contested as a Congress candidate and won the Karanpur seat.
The Rajasthan state Assembly elections took place in one phase on November 25 when 199 of 200 seats went to polls. BJP won 115 seats, and Congress won 69. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot handed in his resignation to Governor Kalraj Mishra on Sunday evening after his Congress party was defeated in the Assembly polls.
