Elections will be conducted in the new gram panchayats in July

Aspirants are galore in newly created 4,380 gram panchayats that are due to go to polls along with the existing ones in August. Youth aspiring for a career in politics are busy working out the strategies to fight polls for the first time.

The State Elections Commission (SEC) notified 4,380 villages as new GPs and directed all District Panchayat Officers (DPO) to prepare and publish ward-wise electoral rolls of Gram Panchayats according to latest Assembly electoral rolls.SEC set May 17 as the deadline for the final publication of electoral rolls in all villages, which left the PR Department officials fully engaged in voter list preparations.

gram panchayats

The government is keen on conducting local body elections as per the schedule and issued a gazette notification facilitating the conduct of elections in new panchayats in addition to the existing 8,360 GPs in the State. People from many habitations and tribal hamlets that are on the fringes of the panchayat had lesser say in matters of village development.TRS, before going to general elections in 2014, assured people that all tribal hamlets would be made GPs and same was fulfilled. “Elections will be conducted in the new gram panchayats in July for which reservation process is underway and it will be completed within a fortnight and the same will be handed over to the SEC,” said Panchayat Raj Deputy Commissioner M Rama Rao to Telangana Today.

Rao said the officials were working hard to publish the electoral list as per the new GPs.

On the other hand, villagers are very happy to elect sarpanch and ward members for their own village. “We have been waiting for electing our own sarpanch. Thanks to the State government for making our village a separate GP,” said M Janreddy of Namthapoor of Kadthal mandal, adding that though there had been long-pending demand for creation of our village into a separate GP, the earlier governments were not bothered.