Municipal elections schedule to be ready by next week

Hyderabad: The State Election Commission is likely to announce schedule for the municipal elections soon.

Since the issue is pending in the High Court, the State Government has pleaded with the Court to dispose of all petitions which challenged the conduct of elections in some civic bodies.

According to sources, after finalising of reservations, the State Election Commission has said that it was ready to release the schedule next week.

Sources said that the finalisation of reservation process would take at least six days as the government has to seek objections from general people after releasing the reservation of municipal wards.

According to the officials, elections are to be held in 120 municipalities and nine Corporations. In a recent video conference with the district collectors State Election Commissioner V Nagi Reddy had asked the Collectors to be ready for taking up municipal elections any time after the Court's verdict.

The officials were asked to get ready with the election material for taking up elections in the State. Sources said that the Election Commission may take up election in two phases.

The municipalities where there are no legal litigations may be taken up during the first phase and at places where there are court cases, the election may be taken up in second phase, sources said.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao during a press conference after the Huzurnagar byelection results had also stated that the election process can be completed in November.

The State government had requested the Court to vacate stay on about 90 petitions filed challenging poll preparatory works in some municipalities.

The Election Commission has already planned for smooth conduct of the elections in the State. The officials have been asked to have a polling station for every 800 voters in the wards.

The authorities are making plans to have 8,056 polling stations in the 129 civic bodies. Regarding the election expenditure, the Commission has prescribed a limit of Rs 1 lakh for a candidate in municipalities and Rs 1.5 lakh in the Corporations.

There are 79,92,434 voters in the municipalities and corporations.