EC sets 6 October for five Assembly bypolls and the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat

The Election Commission of India on 7 September set 6 October as polling day for five Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat. Counting is on 9 October. The process is to close by 11 October. The Model Code of Conduct is in force in the affected districts from the announcement.

The Assembly vacancies are Nandigram and Rejinagar in West Bengal, Madurantakam (SC) and Dharapuram (SC) in Tamil Nadu, and Thattanchavady in Puducherry. The parliamentary vacancy is Nagaon in Assam. Gazette notification is due on 9 September. Nominations close on 16 September, scrutiny is on 17 September, and withdrawals close on 19 September. EVMs and VVPATs will be used at every booth.

Nandigram fell vacant after Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari kept Bhabanipur, where he beat former chief minister Mamata Banerjee by 15,105 votes in the 2026 Assembly election, and resigned the second seat. Rejinagar fell vacant after Aam Janata Unnayan Party chief Humayun Kabir kept Naoda and resigned Rejinagar. Both men had won two seats in the same election.

In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK MLAs Maragatham Kumaravel (Madurantakam) and P. Sathyabama (Dharapuram) resigned after joining the ruling TVK. In Puducherry, Chief Minister N. Rangasamy won Thattanchavady and Mangalam and kept Mangalam. In Assam, Nagaon opened after Pradyut Bordoloi, elected as a Congress MP in 2024, joined the BJP and resigned the seat.

The calendar is short. Twenty-seven days separate the announcement from the vote. That is enough for a local machine to move and not enough for a new national argument to form. Nandigram is the seat that will draw cameras because Adhikari now runs the state from Bhabanipur and because Banerjee lost there in 2026. Rejinagar tests whether Kabir's party can hold a seat he himself has left. The two Tamil Nadu SC seats test whether TVK can convert two AIADMK resignations into wins on the ground it now claims. Thattanchavady is a pocket contest inside a Union Territory whose chief minister already sits in the next hall. Nagaon is the only Lok Sabha piece, and it is a defection seat.

The Commission did not bundle any other vacancy into this round. Parties that wanted a larger map did not get one. Parties that wanted more time did not get that either. The code now limits transfers, announcements and spending in six districts and one parliamentary constituency. Returning officers will take papers from 9 September. Anyone who misses 16 September is out.

West Bengal goes to a bypoll with a chief minister who vacated the more famous of his two seats. Tamil Nadu goes with two SC constituencies whose sitting members crossed to the government. Assam goes with a Lok Sabha seat whose MP changed party after the 2024 mandate. Those three facts, not the press-note prose, are what 6 October will measure.