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Landslide victory for YSCRP in Andhra local body polls
The YSRCP won 547 out of the 553 Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) seats and 7284 out of the 8063 Mandal Parishads Territorial Constituencies (MPTC), results for which were declared by 7.30 pm. Counting for the pending 88 ZPTCs and 1504 MPTCs was underway, when the reports last came in, according to the state election commission.
The ruling YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh achieved a landslide victory in the zilla parishad and mandal parishad (block parishads) elections, the counting for which was held on Sunday.
The YSRCP won 547 out of the 553 zilla parishad territorial constituency (ZPTC) seats and 7284 out of the 8063 mandal parishads territorial constituencies (MPTC), results for which were declared by 7.30 pm. Counting for the pending 88 ZPTCs and 1504 MPTCs was underway, when the reports last came in, according to the state election commission.
The main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) won only three ZPTCs and 675 MPTCs. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its alliance Jana Sena drew blank in zilla parishads, but won 23 and 85 seats in the mandal parishad elections.
An official statement from the YSRCP said the results reflected the endorsement of people’s faith in the governance of chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The party said the ZPTC and MPTC results had also indicated doom for TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu in his assembly constituency Kuppam in Chittoor district. “The YSRC bagged all the four ZPTCs and 62 out of 65 MPTCs in Kuppam. In the gram panchayat elections held in February this year, too, YSRC had won 75 out of 89 gram panchayats,” the official statement said.
State panchayat raj and rural development minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy said the chief minister had gained the people’s trust once again by fulfilling election promises. “It clearly shows the TDP has lost the people’s support,” he said.
However, TDP spokesman and former minister S Chandramohan Reddy ridiculed the claim of the YSRC stating that it had achieved a landslide victory. He reminded that the TDP had boycotted the local body elections after its representation against the election irregularities fell on deaf ears.
“It is an open secret that the ruling YSRCP resorted to threats, intimidation and forced unanimous results in many places. They misused the police and the official machinery without any shame,” he said.
There are in all 660 ZPTC seats and 10,047 MPTC seats in the state, of which around 126 ZPTC and 2,371 MPTC seats were elected unanimously in March 2020, when the election process to the local bodies commenced.
The polling for the remaining seats, supposed to be held in the last week of March 2020, was put on hold by former state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar due to nationwide lockdown owing to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The process for the conduct of elections to the remaining seats resumed on April 2 this year, a day after new state election commissioner Neelam Sawhney assumed charge.
The polling for 515 ZPTC seats and 7,219 MPTC seats was held on April 8. In all, 12,955,980 voters exercised their franchise. The polling could not be held for eight ZPTC and 355 MPTC seats due to court cases, while it was withheld in 11 ZPTCs and 81 MPTCs due to the death of the candidates.
The counting of votes for the ZPTC and MPTC elections was supposed to be held on April 10 but was stalled by a single-judge bench of the state high court acting on a petition filed by the TDP and Jana Sena parties.
Later, on May 21, the bench ordered the cancellation of the ZPTC and MPTC, on the ground that the SEC had not followed the mandatory four-week model code of conduct to be in force between the date of announcement of schedule and the conduct of the elections, as per the Supreme Court directions.
The SEC challenged the single-judge bench verdict before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice N Jayasurya. The SEC argued that the Supreme Court rule for following a four-week model code of conduct cannot apply to the local body elections.
It further contended that the four-week rule was not followed for municipal elections and gram panchayat elections held in April this year. For municipal elections, there was a gap of only 22 days and for panchayat elections, it was only 26 days.
After hearing the arguments, the division bench of the high court on September 16 struck down the single-judge orders and permitted the SEC to go ahead with the counting of votes for the ZPTC and MPTC elections
