Free pass to the House: How often MPs, MLAs have been elected unopposed

Just two weeks after the Election Commission (EC) announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha and four state Assembly polls, 10 BJP candidates for the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly have already won their seats, including Chief Minister Pema Khandu, who also won unopposed in 2014 and 2011 in a bypoll. A sixth of the 60-member Arunachal Pradesh Assembly has been elected unopposed, one seat shy of the record set in 2014, when 11 candidates won without an election.

It is more common for MLAs to win unopposed than Lok Sabha MPs. Since the first elections in 1952, 298 MLAs and 28 MPs won their seats in the absence of any opponent.

In Assemblies, Nagaland leads the way with the most MLAs elected unopposed at 77, followed by Jammu and Kashmir at 63, and Arunachal Pradesh at 40.

In 1962, the Assembly polls in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal and the erstwhile Mysore state and J&K saw the most state legislators elected unopposed in a single year at 47. After that, the highest tallies for a single year came in 1998 at 45, and in 1967 and 1972 at 33 each.

The Congress has, by far, had the most MLAs elected unopposed at 194, followed by the National Conference (NC) at 34, and the BJP at 15. Twenty-nine Independents have also been elected unopposed to date.

Khandu and former J&K CM Syed Mir Qasim have been elected unopposed a record three times each. Khandu’s Mukto Assembly seat has seen the most instances of an MLA elected unopposed at five. Before Khandu, his father and former CM Dorjee Khandu won the seat unopposed in 1990 and 2009.

Since 1952, J&K has seen the most MPs elected unopposed at four. Only eight states have sent more than one legislator to Parliament uncontested, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam,