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After gram panchayat polls, Andhra preps for municipal elections on March 10
The state election commission on Monday announced the schedule for elections to 12 municipal corporations and 75 municipalities and nagar panchayats across the state in a single phase on March 10.
As the elections to 13,000-odd gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh come to a close on February 21, the state will be witnessing yet another electoral battle, this time for urban local bodies, early next month.
The state election commission on Monday announced the schedule for elections to 12 municipal corporations and 75 municipalities and nagar panchayats across the state in a single phase on March 10.
The election process for these urban local bodies had actually commenced in March 2020, but the SEC had to postpone them indefinitely due to imposition of the nationwide lockdown on account of the Coronavirus pandemic.
“When the process was stalled on March 15, 2020 due to the pandemic, nominations were received and scrutinised. Now, the process will resume from the stage of withdrawal of nominations,” state election commissioner N Ramesh Kumar said, in an official release.
The withdrawal of nominations will be accepted on March 2 and 3. The final list of candidates will be announced on March 3. The polling will be conducted on March 10 and re-polling, if required, will be held on March 13. Counting of votes will take place on March 14.
Unlike the gram panchayat elections which are being held on non-party basis, the elections to the municipalities, nagar panchayats and municipal corporations will be held on party-basis and the contestants, other than independents, will be allotted their respective party symbols.
The YSR Congress party, which has been claiming that the candidates supported by it have bagged the majority of 82-85 per cent of gram panchayats, hopes to repeat the show in the elections to urban local bodies as well.
“Our government’s welfare schemes will fetch us the votes in urban local bodies as well. The opposition parties will have to bite the dust,” YSRC leader and state endowments minister Vellampalli Srinivas said.
Senior Telugu Desam Party leader Bonda Umamaheshwar Rao said the SEC should have announced fresh schedule for the municipal polls, instead of continuing the stalled process.
“Last year, the YSRC resorted to large scale violence during the nomination process and intimidated opponents. That is why we requested the SEC to cancel the earlier nominations and start the process afresh. Anyways, the TDP is going to win majority of the urban local bodies,” the TDP leader said.
