With 50% reservations, women to dominate panchayat elections

Adilabad: Women are going to dominate in Panchayat elections as more than 50 per cent seats are reserved for women in gram panchayat elections. Earlier, there were 866 gram panchayats in the erstwhile Adilabad district. Recently the State government formed new gram panchayats, thus increasing the number to 1,508, of which 753 are reserved for women. 

There are 467 gram panchayats in Adilabad district, 334 in Komararm Bheem-Asifabad district, 311 in Mancherial and 396 gram panchayats in Nirmal district. There are 50 per cent reservations for sarpanch and ward member posts for women in the panchayat elections. 

234 gram panchayats in Adilabad, 166 in Asifabad, 154 in Mancherial and 199 in Nirmal district were reserved for women. A few leaders, who are not eligible to contest in the gram panchayat elections, are gearing up to field their wife for the sarpanch post. There are 12,554 wards in the united Adilabad district. The ward members have 50 per cent women members. 

Of the 3,822 wards in Adilabad district, 1,911 are reserved for women. There are 8,338 wards in Nirmal district and of these 1,669 wards are reserved for women. Mancherial district has a total of 2,730 wards and of these 1,365 wards are reserved for women. In Asifabad district, 1,432 ward of the total 2,864, are reserved for women.