With the Election Commission announcing that the bypoll for the Pon da Assembly constituency will be held on April 9 and the results declared on May 4, voters in the con stituency are set to elect a new MLA after a gap of nearly seven months. The seat had fallen vacant following the demise of Agriculture Minister and Ponda MLA Ravi Naik on October 14 last year. Many locals, however, feel there has been an undue delay in announcing the by-elec tion. Viraj Sapre from Ponda said that for the past five months, there had been considerable discussion about who would become the next MLA and contin ue the development works in the constituency.
He noted that when the Zilla Panchayat elections were announced, many people expected the Ponda bypoll to be held simultaneously, but this did not happen. He said that although there is a provision to con duct elections within six months of the death of an elected representative, the bypoll in Ponda should ide ally have been held within two or three months, con sidering that the new MLA would get only a short pe riod to work for develop ment. “Now elections will be held after six months and results declared after another month, leaving the new MLA with a very lim ited time to function,” he said. Sapre added that bypolls should ideally be held only when the elected repre sentative would have at least one year to serve. In the case of Ponda, he said, the new MLA may have only a few months before the next Assembly elec tions scheduled for 2027.
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He pointed out that the last Assembly election was held on February 14, 2022, with results declared on March 10. Another resident, Nayan Naik from Ponda, said by polls should be conducted at the earliest with reforms aimed at strengthening de mocracy. He said the Elec tion Commission should consider introducing re forms to ensure by-elec tions are held sooner.
