BC voters’ list completed; ball in TRS govt court for poll schedule

​Hyderabad: Panchayat Raj officials have completed the enumeration of BC voters in gram panchayats therefore now it is the government’s call on clearing the schedule for the polls. 

The officials also completed determining the reservations to sarpanch and ward member posts and submitted proposals to the government. As soon as the authorities give their consent, the State Election Commission (SEC) would take up the poll exercise.  

According to sources, the officials have identified about 74 lakh BC voters out of 1.37 crore voters in the rural local bodies. The BC voters form about 54 per cent of the total electorate. Reservations for the sarpanch and ward member posts would be announced in a week’s time.      

The official sources said that the BCs may be given 34 per cent, SCs 20 per cent and the STs six per cent reservations. The government should give its endorsement to the proposals for conducting elections as per them. 

The women would be given 50 per cent of the seats parallelly in the reserved and unreserved seats. It means that among the reserved BC seats, one would go to woman. The reservations to the sarpanchs would be determined by taking the State as a unit. The STs would be given all the seats in the agency and tandas as only they reside there.

The SEC is determined to complete the polls by July end, so that the new sarpanchs and ward members are in place by the end of present incumbents’ term. The term of the present sarpanch and ward members would end on July 31. 

Though the SEC wanted to complete the elections in June, transfer of the government staff had come in the way. The transfers process would end by June 20 and the staff would be available for the SEC to appoint them as election officers from that date. 

The SEC needs around 70,000 government staff to hold the polls apart from police personnel. Government teachers, Panchayat Raj officials and Revenue department personnel would be appointed as returning and assistant returning officers. 

The Collectors would pick up the staff for the GP polls and would send the list to the SEC by the end of this month. Each ward would be given an assistant returning officer and each GP would be given a returning officer. The MPDOs, MROs and RDOs would supervise the filing of nominations, enforcement of code of conduct, polling, counting and announcement of results.