Diwakar for young blood in local polls

Hyderabad: Former minister J C Diwakar Reddy on Saturday said that the party leadership should take measures to encourage young blood in the local body elections. Talking to media, he said this exercise should begin from the gram panchayat elections which will be held on non-party basis in June. If this happens, it would become much easier for the party to face the general elections. He said last time similar experiment of having many young MLA candidates had paid dividends. The senior leader felt that the possibility of early Lok Sabha elections was now a certainty. All parties have already got into poll mode, he said. On the question of disqualifying the MLAs who had violated the party whip during the no confidence motion and switched loyalties to YSR Congress party, he said the ball was now in the court of the Speaker and that a decision could be taken by June end or early July. Meanwhile, it is learnt that the Speaker N Manohar has completed the exercise of constituting the departmental standing committees and an announcement would be made next week.