In light of the Corona virus spread, the Election Commission on Tuesday decided to put off the bypolls for the MLC seat from Nizamabad which were initially scheduled to take place on April 7. The vacancy arose because of disqualification of R Bhoopathi Reddy in January 2019.

The last date for filing nominations was over on March 17. The vacancy to the Nizamabad MLC seat fell after three MLCs Bhoopathi Reddy, Yadav Reddy under MLA quota and Ramulu Naik under Governor’s quota who have defected from TRS to Congress before the December 7 Assembly elections without resigning to their council posts were disqualified. Bhoopathi Reddy then moved High Court challenging his disqualification by council chairman. In July 2019 the court upheld the decision of the Chairman to disqualify the MLCs. Telangana CM and TRS president K Chandrasekahara Rao fielded his daughter and former Nizamabad MP K Kavitha for the MLC seat. Her election is just a formality as the ruling party has enough majority in the local bodies seat. She lost the 2019 elections to BJP’s Aravind Dharmapuri from Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat.