All parties waiting for panchayat polls notification in Telangana

​Kothagudem: All parties are waiting for the State government notification for panchayat elections in the State, which is expected to be announced on June 6. Meanwhile, all the parties have already started searching for right candidates for sarpanch posts.

The State officers have conducted meetings in Hyderabad regarding the holding of the elections. They planned to conduct the polls in three phases and one-month training will be given to the newly elected sarpanches. From August 1 the sarpanches will rule the panchayats.

In Kothagudem district, there are 479 panchayats, 4,232 wards and a population of 10.69 lakhs. The panchayat officers are making arrangements to store the ballet boxes in panchayat offices and working to prepare the final list of voters before May 17. The State Election Commissioner have conducted several meetings and video-conferences with the collectors and discussed about adding and removing voters in the list in the villages. Recently the government added additional panchayats in the districts in the State.

In Bhadradri-Kothagudem district, 205 new panchayats were added to the already existing 274 panchayats. All the 479 panchayats were geared for the elections. Last time the sarpanch elections were conducted in 2013, in three phases. The term of these sarpanches will expire on July 31 in this year.

In the gazette, which listed out the names of panchayats, the names of major panchayats Bhadrachalam and Sarapaka were not listed. This lead the people to think that the major panchayats will be made into municipalities this year.

District Panchayat Officer Asha Latha said that they didn’t get clarity about these panchayats from the government.