Andhra Pradesh SEC reviews election preparedness in districts

VIJAYAWADA: State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar made a whirlwind tour of Visakhapatnam, East Godavari and West Godavari districts on Tuesday to review preparedness for the first phase of panchayat elections to be held on February 9.

Speaking to mediapersons in Visakhapatnam, he expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made by the district administration led by district collector V Vinay Chand. “A total of 20,118 staff are on poll duty, and they will be provided training in two phases,” he said. 

Maintaining that he is not against unanimous results, the SEC said every one must be given an opportunity, and every person should utilise the right to vote. “In a district like Vizag, if unanimous results are around 10-15 per cent then it’s okay. But it will be a failure of the district administration if they are 40-45 per cent,” he observed. Stressing the need for everyone to give importance to panchayat elections, he said the Commission will launch a mobile application for vigilance and monitoring of the elections.

Later, the SEC visited Gollagunta of Jaggampeta mandal in East Godavari, where the husband of a sarpanch candidate was murdered. Terming the incident as very unfortunate, he said the officials will do justice to the victim’s family.

Expenditure observers appointed

The Commission has appointed IFS officers as expenditure observers for all the 13 districts. SEC secretary Kanna Babu said the observers will coordinate with IAS officers posted as general observers for the panchayat polls. Sarpanch candidates in villages with more than 10,000 population as per the 2011 census can spend up to Rs 2.5 lakh, and ward members up to Rs 50,000. At other places, the limit for a  sarpanch candidate is set at Rs 1.5 lakh.