New Delhi: The Election Commission has announced the dates for the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana as well as the by-elections in several states. The Election Commission also announced voting dates for 64 assembly seats in 18 states and Samastipur Lok Sabha constituency of Bihar. All these seats will be held on October 21. CEC Sunil Arora said that 15 of these assembly seats are from Karnataka and 11 from Uttar Pradesh.

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The CEC said that there will be by-elections in those seats in Karnataka in which incumbent MLAs were recently disqualified. The 11 assembly seats in UP are mostly those MLAs who won the Lok Sabha elections and resigned from the membership of the state assembly. The Samastipur (Bihar) Lok Sabha seat was vacated after the death of Lok Janshakti Party MP Ramchandra Paswan in July, due to which a by-election is being held.

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The states which will have assembly by-elections are Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Odisha and Puducherry (one seat each). Other states are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Gujarat (4), Himachal Pradesh (2), Kerala (5), Punjab (4), Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu (2 - 2) and Sikkim (3) seats. Notification of Lok Sabha by-election and 64 assembly by-elections will be issued on 23 September. The nomination process will begin on the same day. Citing Durga Puja festival in West Bengal, the Election Commission has said not to hold elections there.

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