Four-phase local body elections in AP to begin on Mar 21

Amaravati: As many as 2.82 crore voters will exercise their franchise in the elections to second and third tier of panchayat raj institutions to be held on March 21 in the first phase of the four-phase polls to rural and urban local bodies in Andhra Pradesh.

The five-year term of the local bodies ended in July last year but the elections were delayed as the reservation of seats was not finalised.

Though the government issued an order providing for a total 59.85 per cent quota for SCs, STs and BCs in all local bodies, the High Court struck it down.

It directed the government to re-do the reservation, restricting the quota to 50 per cent in line with the Supreme Court orders.

Accordingly, the state government notified the new quota, paving the way for the elections.

As per the new quota, STs will get 6.77 per cent, SCs 19.08 per cent and BCs 24.15 per cent.

Previously the BC quota was 34 per cent.

As the state faced the threat of losing funds under the 14th Finance Commission devolution if the elections to panchayat raj institutions were not completed by March 31, the YSR Congress government decided to rush through the process, though the curtailing of BC quota became politically contentious.

Elections will be held for all the 660 zilla parishad territorial constituencies and 9,984 out of 10,047 mandal parishad territorial constituencies on March 21 and results will be declared on March 24.

In all 33,663 polling stations are being set up for MPTC and ZPTCs, of which 11,251 have been identified as hyper-sensitive, according to the State Election Commissioner N Ramesh



Kumar.

He said 15 senior IAS officers were being deployed as general observers to all 13 districts while 15 IFS officers would be the expenditure observers.

A total of 2,01,978 staff would be used for poll duties.

Filing of nominations for the MPTC and ZPTC polls would be from March 9 to 11.

"We are conducting the elections in accordance with the recent Ordinance promulgated amending the AP Panchayat Raj Act. This curtails the duration of poll process to just 13 days," the SEC said.

He told a press conference after releasing the poll notification that elections to municipalities and municipal corporations would be held on March 23 and results declared on March 27.

Elections to gram panchayats would be conducted in two phases on March 27 and 29, he said.

Ramesh Kumar said the model code of conduct would come into force with immediate effect and no new schemes should be implemented in the state.

Similarly, a ban on transfer of government officials and employees would be in place till the poll process was completed, he added.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy released a mobile App called 'Nigha' (surveillance) to enable people to alert polling staff and police on distribution of liquor and money in the local polls.

Violations of other nature could also be reported through the app, which would get registered in the control room for officials concerned to take necessary action, an official release said.

The Ordinance amending the AP PR Act also has a stringent provision that disqualifies a candidate found guilty of distributing liquor and/or money to voters.