Hyderabad: On Tuesday, the Telangana State Election Commission announced the schedule of the Panchayat Elections.
State Election Commissioner V. Nagireddy said that the Panchayat elections would be conducted in three phases on January 21, 25 and 30. The polling will begin from 7 am to 1 pm and counting would begin from 2 pm on the same day.
The Model Code of Conduct has come into force with immediate effect and will continue till the completion of the election process.
In the first phase, 4480 Panchayats will be go for elections, in the second phase the election will be observed in 4137 Panchayats and in the third phase, the election will be conducted in the remaining 4115 Panchayats.
Speaking to the media, Mr Nagireddy said that the election process for the first phase would begin from January 7 and for the second and third phase, the election process would begin on January 11 and January 16 respectively.
He added, “As the election code comes into force, the government should not announce any new schemes and no official tours can be done. We have prepared the voters list in May, 2018. There are about 1.49 Cr voters in the state. The polling will be done on ballot papers. The option of NOTA will also be available in the papers. The ballot paper will be in white and pink colours. About 1.5 lakh staff will be geared up to ensure smooth functioning of Panchayat elections.”
The Congress has slammed the state election commission for announcing panchayati raj elections before revision of electoral rolls.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee treasurer Mr Gudur Narayana Reddy said the polls will take place on the basis of “defective electoral rolls” published in November 2018, from which over 22 lakh eligible voters were missing. “Why does the Election Commission want to act in haste when the summary revision of electoral rolls is already on?" he asked.
Mr Reddy alleged that the commission was not doing its job fairly and instead, acting on the directions of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti government. He said the Congress would not allow injustice to be done to eligible voters and the backward castes.
