StatesAndhra Pradesh
Andhra parishad polls: 7,767 MPTC and 582 ZPTC seats in contest after 2,128 go unopposed
About 2.61 crore rural voters can vote from 7 am on Thursday, with 40,679 police on duty and extra care in districts hit by Cyclone Murasu.
Key points
- Only 7,767 of 9,821 MPTC seats are being contested after unanimous results.
- The final roll has 2,61,52,377 voters, more women than men.
- 40,679 police personnel have been deployed for polling day.
Polling for Andhra Pradesh’s mandal and zilla parishads was due to open at 7 am on Thursday, but on a much shorter ballot than the one the State Election Commission first announced. Unanimous results have already settled more than a fifth of the seats.
Of 9,821 Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) seats, 2,051 were declared unanimous, leaving 7,767 to be decided by voters. In the Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) contest, 77 of 659 seats went unopposed and 582 are on the ballot. Palnadu had the most unanimous MPTC results at 382, followed by YSR Kadapa with 350 and Markapuram with 217. Three MPTC seats will not be filled at all: no nominations were filed for two in YSR Kadapa district, and every nomination for the third, in Nandyal district, was rejected.
The final roll has 2,61,52,377 voters, with women (1,32,74,208) outnumbering men (1,28,76,887). The commission has classed 31,460 polling stations as problematic, and polling will be watched on CCTV at 16,064 locations and webcast on 6,000 laptops.
Rain and security
State Election Commissioner Anil Chandra Punetha held a video conference with collectors and superintendents of police on Wednesday, after heavy rain from Cyclone Murasu. He said that with the rain easing there was no major obstacle to polling in most of the state, and told officials to “conduct the MPTC and ZPTC elections peacefully and transparently”. Decisions on any trouble spots, he said, would be taken on the collectors’ field reports. West Godavari, Guntur and Bapatla districts are getting special attention.
Director General of Police Harish Kumar Gupta has deployed 40,679 personnel. About 2.52 lakh staff are on poll duty, said commission secretary A Mallikarjuna. Counting begins at 8 am on Saturday.