More than four-and-a-half years after four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) fell vacant, the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday announced that polls to these seats would be held on October 24. The last elections for these seats were conducted a decade ago in 2015, when J&K was still a state.

In addition, byelection to one Rajya Sabha seat from Punjab will also be held on the same day. The seat fell vacant on July 1 after AAP MP Sanjeev Arora resigned following his victory in the Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll.

The four J&K seats have been vacant since February 2021, following the retirement of Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Shamsher Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Nazir Ahmed Laway. Fayaz and Laway represented the PDP, Azad was then with the Congress, and Shamsher Singh was from the BJP

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