Announcement of creating a separate State of Telangana on Tuesday may not have any impact on the third and final phase of panchayat elections in the district on Wednesday. Elections to the posts of sarpanches and ward members involve purely the issues concerning the village.
No violence
Political parties supporting the candidates are more concerned about getting them elected than making the unified or divided State an issue. Even this may not cut the ice with the people as they believe this cannot be made an issue in the village elections.
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With no incidence of violence having been reported, law and order problem on the Telangana issue is ruled out.
The police forces deployed for conducting the elections look adequate to tackle any problem. The third phase, to be held in 12 mandals of Anakapalle Revenue Division, is expected to witness an intense fight as YSR Congress in the first phase and Telugu Desam in the second phase took the honours and the Congress needs to go all out to save its face. For Minister for Investments Ganta Srinivasa Rao, who is an MLA of Anakapalle, this phase poses a challenge since he has to get as many Congress supporters elected.
This phase will also see how best the YSR Congress will benefit from senior leader Dadi Veerabhadra Rao, who shifted from Telugu Desam to the party a few months ago, and from another senior leader Konathala Ramakrishna, who is sulking after the party admitted the former into its fold. Most of the Telugu Desam cadre behind Mr. Veerabhadra Rao have not followed him into the YSRCP and the post panchayat election phase will be interesting as they have to make a decision.
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Elections are being held for 282 posts of sarpanches and 2,324 posts of ward members after 40 sarpanches and 813 ward members have been elected unanimously. Elections are also being held for six panchayats in Paderu mandal on Wednesday.