Will the State government ratify the merger of some panchayats surrounding the Anantapur Municipal Corporation geographical limits is the question doing rounds in political circles. With panchayat elections likely to be held by the end of July, followed by mandal and zilla parishad elections and municipal elections, leaders of various political parties await a word from the government.
The election wing on its part has completed the enumeration of voters based on caste along with woman population in each of the existing 50 wards of the AMC. It called for objections on the draft rolls published on June 4 taking the master data from the Election Commission’s voter list.
While the final publication of voter list was to be made on June 17, in view of large number of objections (798) to be disposed of, it has been put off and the data has been sent to the State government where the final reservation of wards based on caste/gender needs to be done. The corporation is awaiting a word from the State government, Municipal Commissioner P.V.V.S. Murthy has told The Hindu.
Total number of voters in the 50 wards was 1.80 lakh in 2014 elections, which has gone up to 2,18,463 in 2019 and the number could rise as people register themselves as voters till the date of notification of municipal elections.
Parties’ strength
Meanwhile, Anantapur Municipal Corporation’s council will have its final general body meeting on June 22 before its term ends on July 3. There is no significant agenda for this meeting, though it will ratify some of the proposals and expenditure on various projects taken up by the corporation after the last meeting.
In the current council Telugu Desam Party has 32 corporators, YSR Congress has 11, Communist Party of India 1 and Communist Party of India (Marxist) 1 and Independents 5. Four corporators -- Durgesh, Laleppa, Vidyasagar and Rahmat Bee -- elected from Telugu Desam Party have switched to to YSR Congress, but continue to be listed as TDP ward members.
