Hyderabad: To avoid giving time to Opposition parties to settle down before municipal polls, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) wants to ensure the entire election process is concluded within 40 to 42 days.
The state government on June 25 requested the High Court to grant 149 days — 119 for the pre-poll process and 30 for the State election commission (SEC) to conduct polls. Subsequently, the court allowed over 140 days to the government. Soon after, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar said the government would conduct the elections by the end of July.
With the state government's fast track approach, the pre-poll process including the delimitation of wards and the reservation of wards for the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), women and Backward Classes (BC) is expected to complete within 22 days, although the government sought 119 days for it.
The state government on June 28 issued an ordinance notifying 138 out of 142 urban local bodies as well as the number of wards in each of them. On June 29, a notification was issued for the delimitation of wards, and the task was completed on July 7.
Sources in the government revealed that the process of reservation of wards has been completed, and the lists will be forwarded to the urban local bodies concerned by Monday. The government will most likely release a notification on July 17 or 18.
The SEC had announced that the final voters' list will be published on July 14, it has now extended the deadline to July 16. The deadline for the notification of the polling stations' list was extended from July 19 to July 21.
The SEC will issue the election schedule after the state government releases the wards' reservation notification. Municipal administration authorities are expecting the election schedule to be issued any time after July 25 post which the SEC will complete the election process within 14 days. Consequently, political parties will get one week for campaigning.
During the all-party meeting conducted recently by the SEC, opposition parties opposed the fast track approach and demanded that the elections should be held as per the undertaking submitted to the High Court.
The SEC reiterated that the elections will not be held for Hyderabad, Khammam, and Warangal municipal corporations and that the schedule for elections to 129 municipalities and Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Ramgundam municipal corporations will be released soon.
Elsewhere, the BJP is busy prepping its cadres to give a tough fight to the TRS in urban local body polls. The party's core committee met on Saturday and decided to contest from all the municipalities and municipal corporations in the impending elections.
