There was a brisk pace of filing nominations by candidates for the ensuing elections to Municipal Corporation of Karimnagar on Friday.
The contestants of all political parties and independents formed serpentine queues to file nominations to contest the elections from various divisions of the town. On the first day, a total of 84 candidates had filed 93 nominations till 5 pm. However, 50-odd persons were still waiting to file their nominations as they had entered the MCK premises before the scheduled time. The contestants, who filed nominations, belonged to TRS, BJP, Congress, MIM, CPI and independents.
It may be recalled that the elections schedule for the MCK were delayed following some persons approaching the court over delimitation of divisions 3, 24 and 25. On Friday, the district election authorities issued election notification allowing filing the nominations till Sunday. The elections in Karimnagar would be held on January 24 and the counting of votes on January 27.
After the issuance of notification, Collector K Shashanka, Joint Collector GV Shyam Prasad Lal, and Commissioner of Police VB Kamalasan Reddy inspected the arrangements for the filing of nominations. The MCK authorities opened separate counters for filing nominations for all the 60 divisions in the town.
A total of 120 candidates filed nominations from 12 municipal wards of Kothapalli municipality on the outskirts of Karimnagar town on Friday, the last date of filing of nominations.
202 in Gajwel
On the last day of nominations, a large number of aspirants filed their papers for the municipalities in Sangareddy. Officials were yet to provide the total number of nominations filed and they were busy sorting out papers.
According to sources, as many as 202 nominations were filed for Gajwel municipality with 111 nominations from TRS followed by 42 independents, 39 Indian National Congress and 10 BJP candidates. There are 20 wards in Gajwel municipality.
At Sadashivapet, as many as 280 nominations were filed with 87 from Congress followed by 82 from TRS, 55 independents, 39 from BJP, eight from CPI(M), three CPI, five MIM and one TJS.
Though officially not declared, parties were projecting prospective chairman candidates, where they feel advantage. For instance, Congress MLA T. Jayaprakash Reddy already announced that his wife and District Congress Committee president Nirmala Jayaprakash Reddy would be the mayor if Congress came to power.
Similarly, former chairperson B. Vjiayalakshmi is also contesting.
Sources confirmed that B. Murali Yadav would be chairman at Narsapur in the case of the party getting majority. Here the Congress become almost handicapped with shifting loyalty of former minister V. Sunitha Laksma Reddy to TRS. It was alleged that she had not allowed the second rung leadership to grow in the party.
Meanwhile, Collector M Hanumantha Rao informed that those whose nominations were rejected at Ameenpur, Bollaram and Tellapur municipalities could appeal at Ameenpur mandal revenue office followed by Sangareddy, Sadashivapet and Andol at Sangareddy revenue divisional office and for Narayankahed at local RDO office.
Many TRS aspirants
In the undivided Adilabad district, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) emerged most popular with councillor aspirants in all municipalities as nominations closed on Friday. Every ward had at least two aspirants filing nomination on TRS ticket. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also had aspirants making a beeline for party nomination. Among them were a good number who had lost hope of getting TRS ticket. The Congress looked like a beleaguered outfit, especially in Adilabad municipality, where it found it difficult to get good candidates from many wards.
There was a huge rush of aspirants wanting to file nomination at the designated centres and the correct number of nominations would be announced later. Authorities said nominations of all those who were in queue at the closing time would be accepted.
Till now, no party had declared the name of a candidate for the post of chairperson for any of the 11 municipalities in the undivided district where elections would be held on January 22.
More women voters
In undivided Khammam, all the five poll-bound Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have more women registered voters than men.
There are around little over 1.63 lakh registered voters eligible to exercise their franchise in the January 22 election in five municipalities – Sattupalli, Wyra, Madhira, Kothagudem and Yellandu, sources said.
Of these, around 84,944 are women, 78,787 are men and 14 belong to the third gender.
Kothagudem municipality and Madhira municipality in Khammam district are all set to have women heads.
The posts of chairpersons of the two key ULBs have been reserved for “Women (General)” and “SC women” respectively.
Although the post of the mayor of the Khammam Municipal Corporation (KMC) has been allotted for Women (General), the election to the civic body would be held next year as the KMC’s elected council still has more than one-year term.
Long wait
In Nizamabad, filing of nominations for the Municipal Corporation of Nizamabad and six municipal councils concluded peacefully on Friday. The contesting candidates spent hours together in queues to get no-dues certificate from civic bodies to enclose with nomination papers.
As the last reports reached, 110 candidates filed papers in Yellareddy and 206 in Banswada of Kamareddy district while there were 393 nominations in Armoor of Nizamabad district.
