Civic polls: Cong may not drag it anymore

Hyderabad: The State government is keen on holding election to the urban civic bodies and the gram panchayats well before October. Though the ruling Congress is expecting a tough going in the local body polls too, the government may not be able to afford to delay the polls any further.

The local bodies, especially the gram panchayats, have been finding themselves at considerable loss as far as their due share of grants and Central government assistance are concerned.

It is more so in respect of the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF), which is designed to redress development imbalances in areas such as Telangana.

The cases pertaining to the long awaited elections to the local bodies was concerned, the final hearing is due in the court of law. The government is firm on clearing the legal hurdles for conducting elections to all the urban local bodies 'within 100 days'.

Moves have been afoot to this effect, according to a top bureaucrat. It would be followed by elections to gram panchayats in October.

The gram panchayats have been under the special officers ever since the term of the elected bodies was over in July/August last. The government was expected to conduct elections to the 21,943 gram panchayats immediately.

The State government, which sought to reach out to the disadvantaged sections in a bigger way, enhanced reservations.

A notification was issued on June 8 making certain amendments to the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj (Reservation of Seats and Offices of Gram Panchayats, Mandal Parishads and Zilla Parishads) Rules, 2006, providing the reservations of 8.25 per cent for Scheduled Tribes, 18.30 per cent for Scheduled Castes and 34 per cent for Backward Classes, taking the total to 60.55 per cent.

But the enhancement of reservations was very much against the Supreme Court verdict, in Krishna Murthy versus state of Karnataka case, which stipulated that the reservations should not exceed 50 per cent in any case.

Organisations that have been insisting on conducting the local body polls without delay were under the impression that the enhancement of reservations was a deliberate move to buy time for conducting polls.

The government could not conduct elections to the 131 urban local bodies (ULBs) though the term of elected councils ended in October, 2010.

The special officer regime has been continuing ever since despite the fact that many of the special officers were not able to the reach out to the wards and the grievances there, according to R Chandra Shekar Reddy, Supreme Court advocate, who had challenged the repeated postponement of elections to the local bodies.

He contended that under Article 243, State cannot be permitted to withhold election of panchayats except in case of genuine supervening difficulties to hold such elections such as unforeseen natural calamities like flood, earthquake or extremely urgent situation prevailing in the State.