ExplainedAndhra Pradesh
Andhra's mandal and zilla parishad polls explained: who you elect today and why it matters
About 2.81 crore rural voters in Andhra Pradesh cast two ballots on Thursday, two days later than planned, after a bitter run-up of court battles and clashes. How the state's rural councils are chosen, what they control, and what the result will say about Chandrababu Naidu's government.
The short answer
Andhra Pradesh's rural local government has three tiers: gram panchayats for villages, mandal parishads for blocks of villages, and zilla parishads for districts. On Thursday voters elect members to the middle and top tiers, casting one ballot for a Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) and one for a Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC), on party symbols. The winners then pick the mandal parishad presidents and zilla parishad chairpersons. Polling runs from 7 am to 5 pm, was moved from 3 November so police and staff were not stretched over two exercises, and votes are counted on Saturday, 7 November. It is the first statewide rural vote since the TDP-led alliance swept the 2024 Assembly election, and the YSR Congress Party, which won almost every seat in 2021, says its candidates were obstructed.
What are Andhra Pradesh voters electing today?
Members of the state’s mandal and zilla parishads, the middle and top tiers of rural local government. Under the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution, every state has a three-tier panchayat raj system. In Andhra Pradesh the bottom tier is the gram panchayat, run by a sarpanch for a village. Above it sits the mandal parishad, covering a block of villages, and above that the zilla parishad for a whole district.
Each mandal is divided into Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTCs), and each district into Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTCs), roughly one per mandal. So a rural voter gets two ballots on Thursday: one to choose an MPTC member, one to choose a ZPTC member.
How is this different from a gram panchayat election?
The gram panchayat polls, which choose sarpanches and ward members, are held separately and without party symbols. The MPTC and ZPTC contest is fought on party lines, with paper ballots carrying party symbols. That is why the parties treat it as a political test. In 2021 polling was suspended at one centre in Amalapuram Rural because the Jana Sena symbol had been left off the ballot paper.
The people elected today do not run the councils directly. After the count, MPTC members elect the mandal parishad president and ZPTC members elect the zilla parishad chairperson. Those councils oversee development works and funds across their mandals and districts, which is why the parties fight so hard for majorities.
How big is the exercise?
When State Election Commissioner Anil Chandra Punetha announced the schedule on 19 October, 659 ZPTC and 9,829 MPTC seats were listed for election across 28 districts, with about 2.81 crore eligible voters and 35,333 polling stations. Some seats were settled before polling day, when returning officers declared unopposed winners on 27 October. After scrutiny, 50,815 nominations were found valid.
Polling runs from 7 am to 5 pm, except at 88 stations in Alluri Sitarama Raju and Polavaram districts, where it closes at 3 pm. Any repoll is on Friday, and counting starts at 8 am on Saturday.
Why was polling moved from 3 November?
Because the urban count fell on the same day. After the Supreme Court told the commission on 21 October to reconsider whether opposition candidates had been kept from filing, the commission gave candidates in four urban bodies two more days to file and pushed municipal polling to 1 November and counting to 3 November. It then moved the rural vote, saying the “available police and polling personnel are not sufficient to effectively manage both the activities on the same day.”
What happened last time?
The YSR Congress Party swept the 2021 polls. Voting was held on 8 April 2021, but counting was held up in the courts until September. By the evening of counting day, the YSRCP had won 547 of the 553 ZPTC seats declared, against three for the TDP, which had announced a boycott after the ballot papers were printed. The YSRCP had also won 2,271 MPTC and 126 ZPTC seats unopposed. “The results clearly show that the TDP has lost the people’s support,” said Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, then panchayat raj minister. The TDP accused the ruling party of “forced unanimous results in many places”.
Why does this one matter?
It is the first statewide rural test for Naidu’s government. The TDP, the Jana Sena and the BJP won 164 of the 175 Assembly seats in 2024 and are contesting together. The roles have reversed: this time it is the YSRCP that says its candidates were attacked and stopped from filing, from Chittoor and Tirupati to Palnadu, and it went to the Supreme Court over the urban polls. The ruling alliance accuses the YSRCP of filing 59 petitions in court to obstruct the polls.
Caste is also on the ballot. The Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down a 34% quota for Backward Classes in rural local bodies on 1 October because it took total reservation above 50%, and the Supreme Court refused to interfere. Naidu promised instead that the alliance would give 34% of its tickets to BC candidates; Saturday’s count will show how many of them win.
The poll also reaches beyond the state’s borders. Andhra Pradesh is holding the vote in Kotia, a cluster of villages Odisha claims, and Odisha’s Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik has asked Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi to take it up. In 2021 a border dispute pending in the Supreme Court disrupted polling in about six villages on the Odisha border.