Telangana’s gram panchayats to go to polls from December 11

The State Election Commission (SEC) has announced gram panchayat elections in Telangana to be held in three phases on December 11, 14, and 17. The Model Code of Conduct has come into immediate effect across 12,728 panchayats, excluding 32 under High Court stay orders.

Hyderabad: Setting the ball rolling for the long-pending gram panchayat elections in Telangana, the State Election Commission (SEC) on Tuesday issued a notification, according to which the polls will be conducted in three phases beginning on December 11.

With this, the election Model Code of Conduct has come into immediate effect in 12,728 panchayats, excluding 32 panchayats where the elections were put on hold as per orders issued by the High Court in connection with various cases.

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The first phase will be held on December 11, followed by the second phase on December 14 and the third phase on December 17. Polling will be held from 7 am to 1 pm and the counting of votes would be taken up the same day from 2 pm onwards.

Nominations for the first phase can be filed from Thursday and the last date for filing nominations is Saturday. The first phase of the elections will be held in 4,236 panchayats and 37,440 wards.

Even as BC organisations have been demanding scrapping of GO Ms 46, issued recently to facilitate the conduct of the panchayat elections as per the old reservation pattern, the State government furnished the revised reservations to the Sarpanches and Ward Members. The same was submitted to the SEC as well. However, the community-wise reservation details have not been shared in public domain so far.

It is based on the State government’s revised reservation pattern that the SEC has issued the election schedule. It also kept the election notification issued on September 29 on hold.

The SEC’s notification on Tuesday is not applicable to 32 panchayats, including 25 from Mangapet mandal in Mulugu district, two from V Saidapur mandal in Karimnagar, four from Enkoor mandal and one from Penuballi mandal in Khammam, due to stay orders issued by the High Court in various cases.

As a result, the elections starting on December 11 are being held in 12,728 panchayats and 1,12,242 wards. The total strength of rural voters as per the Gram Panchayat ward-wise electoral rolls re-published on November 23 is 1,66,55,186.

Of these, men are 81,42,231 and women are 85,12,455. This is slightly lower than the total rural voters’ strength of 1,67,03,168, as per the SEC’s figures on September 29.

 

– Polling will be held using ballot boxes and ballot papers
– First phase on December 11, Second phase on December 14 and Third phase on December 17.
– Counting of votes on the same day after polling from 2 pm
– First phase will cover 4236 panchayats and 37,440 wards
– Second phase will cover 4333 panchayats and 38,350 wards
– Third phase will cover 4159 panchayats and 36,452 wards