Prakasam district warms up for GP Polls

Ongole: Prakasam district Collector Dr Pola Bhaskara directed officials to follow the instructions of the Election Commission to organise the elections efficiently.

Participating in the Stage-1 officials training programme for the conduct of panchayat elections at the Collectorate on Wednesday, he asked them to take all measures to conduct the polls in a peaceful atmosphere and avoid any mistakes and wrongs in the procedure. He ordered the tahsildars, MPDOs, EORDs, and police to work with coordination and added that they should act sensitively and alertly in the elections.

He advised the officials to prepare for the first phase of the elections scheduled on February 9 and create awareness among the village elders. He said that lack of grip on the villages for the VROs is the reason for many issues nowadays and ordered them to inform about the presence of any new people in the villages to officials. He ordered the panchayat officials to prepare the notice boards by Thursday to issue the election notification officially on Friday.

The collector also warned the revenue officials that they should not delay the issue of caste certificates to the contesting candidates and ordered the panchayat secretaries, VROs, and digital secretaries to cooperate in the nomination process. He ordered that there will be no role in the election for the volunteers and see they submit their mobile phones to the officers.

The SP Siddharth Kaushal asked the officials to extend cooperation to conduct the elections efficiently. He added that they are appointing the surveyors at secretariats, engineering assistants, women police, PETs, and HWOs as para-police to implement law and order at 2167 polling stations. He advised the tahsildars to respond immediately to the issue of summons and taking other decisions related to the elections. Joint Collector JV Murali said that the officials should cooperate with the election flying squads and statistical surveillance teams and inform about the conditions in the villages to the officials from time to time.

Joint Collector TS Chetan said that the nomination process would go on from January 29 to 31. He ordered the officials to scrutiny the nominations on February 1, receive objections of 2nd and allow withdrawals and announce the final list of the candidates on February 4.

The Kandukur Sub-Collector Bhargav Taja, trainee IAS T Abhishek, Additional SP B Ravichandra, DRO K Vinayakam, Sub-Collectors, RDOs and other officers also participated in the meeting.