Uncertainty looms over KMC elections amid division expansion plan
The Khammam Municipal Corporation (KMC) faces uncertainty as its council’s tenure ends on May 7. Plans for early elections in February were stalled due to lack of preparedness and pending State government approval for increasing divisions from 60 to 70.
Khammam: Uncertainty surrounds the increase in municipal divisions and conducting the elections to Khammam Municipal Corporation (KMC) as its council’s tenure ends on May 7.
According to sources, though it was planned to conduct early elections for the KMC during the municipal elections in February this year as it could not be done due to several reasons such as lack of preparedness and State government’s approval for the proposed increase in the number of divisions.
The municipal corporation with 60 municipal divisions is spread across Khammam and Palair Assembly constituencies represented by Ministers Tummala Nageswara Rao and Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy respectively. There are 57 divisions in Khammam and three in Palair.
It might be noted that in the elections held in April 2021, the city had around 2,88,646 voters and in the past five years the number of voters increased along with an increase in the population.
In view of this a proposal to increase the number of divisions by 10 taking the total number of divisions to 70 is said to have been submitted to the State government. The State Assembly’s approval is needed for the reorganisation of the KMC.
A similar exercise was done prior to the 2021 elections as the number of divisions was increased to 60 from 50 divisions that existed during the 2016 elections, the first elections after the formation of Khammam Municipal Corporation.
Political parties are expecting the same exercise would be carried out this time giving a chance to more corporators to get elected. However, it is not clear whether the government would give its nod to the proposal or the elections would be held with the existing number of divisions.
It might be recalled that the BRS swept the elections held to the KMC in 2016 as well as 2021 by winning 34 of the 50 divisions and 43 of the 60 divisions respectively. The party leadership is hoping to repeat the same feat in the next elections.
According to officials, elections to the KMC are likely to be held along with Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation whose tenure would end on May 16, as well as Cyberabad, Malkajgiri and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporations, though the election schedule is not yet clear.
