Elections to gram panchayats anytime after June 20

State Election Commissioner V. Nagi Reddy informed the Collectors and Superintendents of Police at a crucial meeting here on Wednesday that the notification for elections to 12,751 gram panchayats in Telangana would be issued any time after June 20.

Mr. Reddy asked the Collectors and SPs to complete by June 20 the general transfer of employees to facilitate their deployment for polling duties. They were told it would be a three-phase polling to elect sarpanches and ward members on non-party basis. The elected bodies of gram panchayats would elect the upa-sarpanches on the same day.

The meeting, also attended by Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, District Panchayat Officers and Chief Executive Officers of Zilla Parishads, was informed that the identification of backward class voters was in progress and the final list would be published on June 1, while the list of polling stations would be notified on June 4. Sources said the reservation for sarpanches would be fixed district-wise by the State government on population basis and the Collectors would allot the same, while the Revenue Divisional Officers would complete the formalities for the wards. As per the new Panchayat Raj Act of the State, BCs are entitled for 34% reservation, while SCs and STs would get it proportionate to their population in each district. Women would be reserved 50% seats in each category.

The elections would be confined to gram panchayats alone as mandal and zilla parishads have one more year to complete the term. Apart from 12,751 sarpanches, the voters would also elect 1.13 lakh ward members. The election officials would give two ballot papers to voters, one for sarpanch and the other for ward member, in different colours. Each ward would get one ballot box.

The State Election Commission is relying mostly on ballot boxes as the electronic voting machines in the State would not be sufficient for the election of such a big nature which is accentuated by reorganisation of districts. The government added 3,965 new panchayats to the existing 8,786 after the new districts were formed. The EC has given 60,000 ballot boxes, while Karnataka and Maharashtra have pooled their resources. They were also despatched to districts.

The receipt of nominations for elections would be from the fourth to tenth day of issue of notification.