With the completion of withdrawal of nominations for the second phase of gram panchayat elections, 50 sarpanches have been elected unanimously in various parts of erstwhile undivided Karimnagar district.
Both phases put together 84 gram panchayats have sarpanches elected unopposed in the undivided Karimnagar district, 34 in first phase and 50 in second phase. Interestingly half of them are women.
Attracted by the State government’s incentive of ₹ 10 lakh for the gram panchayat where the sarpanch gets elected unopposed and also special incentive of ₹ 15 lakh to the GPs announced by the respective legislators belonging to the ruling TRS, the villagers have exhibited unity in the elections for the sake of development of the villages with the incentive amount.In Rajanna-Sircilla district, sarpanches to 13 gram panchayats were elected unanimously in the first phase and in the second phase it was 15. Out of the 28 GPs 18 are women.
In Karimnagar district, 9 gram panchayats saw no contest for sarpanches, four in first phase and five in the second phase. Of the nine three are women.
Similarly in Jagtial district, a record number of 31 sarpanches were elected unopposed, 10 in the first and 21 in the second phase. Among the elected, there were 15 women who became sarpanches. In Peddapalli district, 16 sarpanches have been elected unopposed after the last date of withdrawal of nominations in the second phase. They include seven sarpanches elected in first phase and 9 elected in the second phase. Five of them are women.
It may be recalled that during the 2013 gram panchayat elections, only 58 villages in the erstwhile Karimnagar district reported unanimous election for sarpanch.
New milestone
This time, during the two phases itself the numbers had reached 84 and the number is set to increase after the withdrawal of nominations for the third phase of elections. Local leaders are confident that it would cross 100, thereby setting a milestone in the history of grassroot democracy in the region.
