Panchayat elections in the district would be conducted in an impartial manner and in a peaceful way, Collector V. Sheshadri assured representatives of political parties during a meeting with them here on Tuesday.
Filing of nominations started on the day and will continue up to July 13 and the Tahsildars would be available at their offices to issue caste certificates for the contesting candidates without delay, he said. Symbols would be allotted according to alphabetical order in Telugu. Election will be held for sarpanches of 920 Gram Panchayats and their 9,214 wards in three phases, on July 23, 27 and 31. Regional Director of Municipal Administration Asha Jyothi informed that list of BC voters for municipal elections was prepared and draft publication of SC and ST voters was completed. Objections if any could be filed by July 12. The final publication would be on July 18.
MLA of Madugula G. Ramanayudu, district president of BJP B.S. Nayudu, V.V. Srinivasa Rao of CPI-M, trainee Assistant Collector Krishna Bhaskar, District Panchayat Officer K. Sudhakar, Municipal Commissioners of Narsipatnam, Elamanchili, Anakapalle and Bheemunipatnam and other officials were present.
MD of MEPMA Anita Ramachandran was appointed as election observer for the district while VC of VUDA N. Yuvaraj and DFO Ramamohana Rao as general and expenditure observers respectively. Central Government employees will be appointed as micro-observers. A total of 383 villages have been identified as hypersensitive and webcasting would be arranged in as many polling stations as possible in these villages, the Collector said. If it was not possible, videography and micro-observers would be arranged. Static or mobile police force would be arranged.
The rural police would make plans for security and smooth conduct in the Agency area where 151 extremist affected villages have been identified. Twelve of them are inaccessible.
