The third gender has been left out from the local body elections as far as reservation and general seats are concerned, though they have been given the voting right. The District Electoral Officer does not have a clue as to how to go about this problem and proposes to write to the State Election Commission.
In Anantapur district, there are 23,42,683 voters in the ZPTC, MPTC and Gram Panchayat elections of whom 89 persons have identified themselves as third gender and they are in a dilemma over the category under which they should be filing their nominations, if they prefer to contest.
District Electoral Officer Gandham Chandrudu said they would write to the State Election Commission for clarification if any such case was presented to them seeking nomination from any of the constituencies.
There are 11,81,118 male and 11,62,404 female voters in the district. Out of the 2,664 polling stations, only 673 are normal, while Critically Sensitive and Sensitive account for 904 and 905 respectively and another 182 are troublesome, according to the security classification done by the local committees.
10 for SCs
The Zilla Parishad Chairperson post has been reserved for Backward Classes Woman and out of the 63 ZPTCs 18 are for BCs, including nine for women, 10 are for SCs, including five for women, three for STs, including two for women. In the remaining 32 (general), half have been reserved for women.
As per the ruling YSRCP, some party tickets from the 32 general seats would also go to BCs and the Opposition parties are yet to announce their decision.
As far as MPTCs are concerned, out of 841 in the 63 mandals in the district, 440 will be for women.
The notification for the Gram Panchayat elections to be held in two phases and the municipal elections will be made at a later date as per the scheduled announced by the State Election Commission.
