State municipal elections on March 30

Hyderabad, March 3: The much awaited municipal elections in Andhra Pradesh will be held on March 30.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, State Election Commissioner P Ramakanth Reddy informed that the elections to 146 municipalities and 10 municipal corporations would be held on the same day. The counting of votes will take place on April 2. He also clarified that the municipal elections would not clash with the Lok Sabha and Assembly which are likely to be held in April.

The nominations for municipal corporations will be received from March 10 to 13th while for municipalities the last date for filing of nomination will be March 14th. The nominations will be scrutinised on March 15. The last date for withdrawal of nominations will be March 18.

The poling will be held from 7 AM to 5 PM on that day. About 11,000 EVMs will be used in the elections in which the candidates can contest on their respective party symbols and nearly one crore voters will exercise their franchise. The limit of expenditure for the candidates in municipalities is Rs one lakh and the amount is Rs 1.5 lakh in the corporations.

Sources say that Governor ESL Narasimhan gave the nod for conducting the municipal elections on Sunday and the schedule was announced a few hours before Andhra High Court took up the hearing of a petition over the delay in holding the elections. It may be mentioned that the High Court on February 3 had pulled up the State Government for delaying the municipal polls. It also directed the Chief Secretary to conduct the polls within four weeks. Though the State Government approached the Supreme Court, it refused to stay the High Court’s order.

– INN