The State Election Commission has announced that the draft ward wise electoral rolls of electors of the ensuing elections to municipalities and municipal corporations has been released on Monday.
Accordingly, voters can verify their names in the lists hosted on the SEC website or at the respective municipality/corporation offices. Claims and objections will be accepted up to January 2 and the final list of electors of 2,727 wards in 120 municipalities and 385 wards of the 10 municipal corporations would be released on January 4.
The SEC averred that necessary steps will be initiated to include the names of the electors that were present in the electoral rolls used in the previous Assembly polls but were not present in the current list of electors released. State Election Commissioner V. Nagi Reddy said a major change in the elections this time was the announcement of the election schedule before releasing the final list of electors.
This, he said, was done in line with Section 195, 197 of the new Municipal Act after obtaining the necessary clearance from the government.
“The process has been carried out in accordance with the rules,” he said.
He expressed concern over the charges of Opposition parties that the SEC adopted hasty approach in announcing the schedule before finalization of reservations and publication of the electors’ lists. All the parties were aware of the provisions of the new Act that was passed by the legislature. “I am not aware whether the criticism is deliberate or is aimed at misleading the people. It is not proper for these parties to indulge in mud-slinging against the commission,” he said adding that the schedule of reservations would be announced after January 6. Though the SEC tried to clarify about the methodology adopted in line with the new legislation at the all party meeting convened on Saturday, it could not do so as the meeting ended inconclusively.
On the other issues, he said nominations would be accepted from January 8 and aspiring candidates could download the nomination forms from T-Poll software.
He, however, clarified that the candidates should submit original copy of their nomination form to the returning officer concerned as mere uploading the nomination online would not serve the purpose. The commission would deploy close to 40,000 personnel on election duties and those deployed on the poll duties should exercise their franchise through postal ballot which would be issued on January 13.
Municipal Administration director T. Sridevi said the commission would announce reservations to the municipalities and municipal corporations taking State as unit. Steps would be taken to ensure that the reservations to SC, ST and BC communities did not exceed 50%.
The reservations for Mayor, deputy mayor posts of corporations and chairman vice-chairman of the municipalities would be announced on January 5 while the reservations at the level of corporators and councillors would be announced by the respective district collectors.
