SEC issues notification for ZPTC, MPTC elections

Polling in three phases on May 6, 10 and 14; counting on May 27

April 21, 2019 12:08 am | Updated 06:45 am IST - HYDERABAD

The rural areas in Telangana will go for one more election soon in May, as the State Election Commission (SEC) has issued notification for rural local bodies (RLBs) polls on Saturday. A total of 538 Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTCs) and 5,817 Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTCs) will go for polling in three phases on May 6, 10 and 14.

Phase-wise separate election notices will be issued by the returning officers concerned on April 22, 26 and 30. Counting of votes of the election to be held with ballot papers will be taken up on May 27 for all the three phases. Nomination papers could be filed for three days from the date of issuance of notice and the scrutiny of papers will be taken up on the next day. After a two-day period for disposal of appeals against rejected nomination papers, candidates will have a day’s time for withdrawal.

Issuing the notification for the first ordinary elections to MPTCs and ZPTCs after the formation of Telangana State here, State Election Commissioner V. Nagi Reddy said that as on April 20 the total number of rural voters is 1,56,11,474 including 77,34,800 men, 78,76,361 women and 313 of the third gender. A total of 32,041 polling stations would be arranged for the polls in three phases at 13,651 locations.

Mr. Nagi Reddy stated that holding the rural local bodies’ elections with electronic voting machines (EVMs) was not possible as except some, all available EVMs were used for the recent Parliamentary elections. Besides, the availability of voter verifiable paper audit trial (VVPAT) machines was also scarce.

Colour-coded

As had been the practices from 1983-84, pink colour ballot papers would be used for MPTC elections and white ballot papers for ZPTC polls, the SEC said, adding that the upper limit of poll expenditure for ZPTC candidates was ₹4 lakh and that of MPTC candidates was ₹1.5 lakh. The model code had come into force with the issuance of notification for all the rural areas which come under the purview of Panchayat Raj Act.

“Even in case of large number of candidates, we are prepared with 75,285 big (huge) ballot boxes besides 21,432 medium size boxes and 21,437 small size boxes,” Mr. Nagi Reddy explained, when asked whether the SEC was prepared to conduct polling in case of large number of contestants as had happened in Nizamabad Parliamentary Constituency recently.

A registered voter in rural area can contest both ZPTC and MPTC election but he/she has to vacate one of the two elected seats, if he/she wins both ZPTC and MPTC. However, one cannot contest for more than one ZPTC or MPTC seat. All nominations of the candidate would get cancelled if he/she fails to withdraw all, except one.

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