Gadwal: The State Election Commissioner, C. Parthasarathi, stressed the need for thorough preparations for the upcoming local body elections. On Thursday, he held a video conference with district collectors and other election officials to review the plans.
Commissioner Parthasarathi mentioned that the local body elections will be completed within the next four to five months. The elections will occur in three phases: first, the Gram Panchayat elections, followed by the MPTC and ZP TC elections, and finally, the Municipal elections. He urged all district election officers, especially the collectors, to focus on the arrangements carefully. Unlike assembly or parliamentary elections, local body elections are conducted in a non-partisan manner, making it essential to ensure a peaceful and transparent process.
The Commissioner directed the immediate start of tasks like preparing voter lists and mapping polling stations. He set deadlines for these tasks, with the draft voter list to be released on September 6, and the final voter list to be published on September 21. He emphasized the importance of being vigilant at every stage to avoid any errors.
He also highlighted the crucial role of additional collectors of local bodies in the election process, as per the Panchayati Raj Act of 2018. Voter lists for Gram Panchayats should be based on assembly constituency-wise voter lists, ensuring that no eligible voter is left out. He suggested holding meetings with political party representatives to review the voter list and polling station arrangements.
The Commissioner advised identifying polling stations that could face problems and ensuring the elections are peaceful, transparent, and impartial. He recommended that each polling station should have no more than 600 voters, and an additional station should be set up if the number exceeds 650. Precautions should be taken to ensure that voters from one ward do not have voting rights in another, and that family members are listed together.
Commissioner Parthasarathi emphasized that election preparations are of the utmost importance and warned that any negligence would not be tolerated. He instructed officials to arrange ballot boxes and other materials, assign polling staff, and organize training sessions for them. Duties at polling stations should be allocated through randomization.
District Collector B.M. Santosh, Additional Collector Narsing Rao, DPO Shyam Sundar, RDO Ramachander, and other officials participated in the video conference.
