Local body polls may take steam off T-stir

With the announcement of the panchayat poll schedule on Wednesday by State Election Commissioner P. Ramakantha Reddy, parties may take a break from their tussle on the contentious Telangana issue.

'The Telangana issue may take a back seat for some time at least as every politician in the state is interested to see his followers elected to panchayats,” said a senior Congress leader.

According to him, all elected representatives will have to do a lot of consultations during local elections as they knew these polls will form the basis for the coming general elections in any state. Panchayat polls will be held on nonparty basis whereas for the rest of local body institutions, polls will be held on party basis.

Meanwhile, Mr Ramakantha Reddy issued a notification paving the way for all District Election Authorities, barring Hyderabad to conduct elections to panchayats which include, election of sarpanch, upa sarpanch and ward members. For the first time 50 per cent of the panchayat posts are reserved for women.

These elections, which will be held in three phases and ends on July 31, will be followed by elections to municipalities and municipal corporations in August. The elections to MPTCs, ZPTCs and Zilla Parishads will be held in September.

Once these elections are over, the real strengths of various political parties could be estimated.