Process for rural local body polls in Telangana set in motion

Hyderabad, Oct 9 (IANS) The process for election to rural local bodies in Telangana was set in motion with the State Election Commission on Thursday issuing the notice for the first phase of polls.

Nominations for first phase of polls to the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTCs), Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTCs) will be received from Thursday. The returning officers issued notices calling for nominations.

The first phase of polls to be held on October 23 will cover 2,963 MPTCs and 292 ZPTCs.

Nominations will be received till October 11. Scrutiny of nominations will be taken up the next day while nominations can be withdrawn till October 15.

Though the petitions, challenging 42 per cent reservations for Backward Classes (BCs), are being heard in the High Court, the State Election Commission is going ahead with the poll process.

As per the scheduled announced on September 29, elections to ZPTCs, MPTCs and Gram Panchayats will be held in five phases in October-November.

Elections to MPTCs and ZPTCs will be held in two phases on October 23 and 27 while Gram Panchayats will go to polls in three phases on October 31, November 4 and November 8.

According State Election Commissioner Rani Kumudini, over 1.67 crore voters are eligible to cast their votes in these elections.

Votes polled in ZPTCs and MPTCs will be counted on November 11 while counting in gram panchayats will be take up after the polling.

Elections will be conducted in 565 mandals in 31 districts. Polling will be held for 565 ZPTCs, 5,749 MPTCs, 12,733 gram panchayats and 1,12,288 wards.

Elections will not be held for 14 MPTCs, 27 gram panchayats and 246 wards due to stay orders issued by courts in different cases.

The polling will be conducted by using ballot boxes and ballot papers. The ballot boxes have been borrowed from Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

The State Election Commissioner said that the number of voters is 1,67,03,168 comprising 81,65,894 males, 85,36,770 females and 504 others.

--IANS

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