Stage set for final phase of local polls

Hyderabad: The State Election Commission (SEC) has made all arrangements for the peaceful conduct of third and final phase of mandal and ZP elections in the State on Tuesday.

The third phase election is being held in 17 districts, including the tribal districts of Mancherial, Komaram Bheem Asifabad, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Mulugu, Jayashankar Bhoopalapally district on Tuesday. The campaign in these districts has ended on Sunday.

The election would be held in 161 ZPTC and 1,738 MPTCs on Tuesday.

The SEC authorities have declared that there should not be any campaign rallies, public meetings during the election time and warned of action against any poll code violation.

The SEC has provided 9,494 polling stations in the 17 districts going for polls on Tuesday.

The commission has already dispatched the ballot papers and indelible ink to all the polling stations. The Nalgonda district has the highest number of polling stations.

There are 691 polling stations in the district. For 161 ZPTCs there are 741 candidates in fray.

The highest number of candidates is in Nalgonda where there are 53 candidates for 11 ZPTCs. Party-wise candidates in fray for 161 ZPTCs include TRS-161, Congress 158, BJP 124, CPI 17 and CPM 25.

For MPTCs, the TRS has 1,691, Congress 1527, BJP 815, CPI 84 and CPM 135.

The commission has asked the parties not to display their symbols in the form of advertisements in television channels.

The election observers in the mandals are taking note of the poll code violations and they would be updating the situation to the commission.

The authorities have asked the non-locals to leave the areas which are going for polls and asked the police personnel to book cases if they find any non-locals in the polling areas.

The first two rounds of the mandal and ZP elections have been completed and the third phase polling will be on Tuesday and the results for all the three phases would be announced on May 27.