AP Local Body Polls Within A Month

State Panchayati Raj minister K Jana Reddy, on Wednesday, said that the local body elections in Andhra Pradesh are likely to be held within a month.

Addressing a state-level convention of the Congress, he asked the party cadre to gear up for the polls.

Elections to gram panchayats and mandal parishads are likely to be held in the last week of June or the first week of July.

Elections to zilla parishads and other district level bodies are expected in August.

Jana Reddy asked party workers to ensure that the Congress wins a majority of seats in local bodies, well ahead of next year's elections to the state Assembly and the Parliament.

The minister said that elections to local bodies could not be held for the last two years due to certain problems in providing reservations to various sections.

However, he did not say when the government proposes to hold elections to urban local bodies.

The Supreme Court, in February this year, had asked the state government to conduct elections to Urban Local Bodies (ULB) and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) on the basis of the existing 60.5% reservation quota to backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The apex court had passed the orders on a petition by the state government, which had challenged the state High Court's instructions to the authorities, directing them to hold the polls by fixing the reservation quotas at 50%.

The term of ULBs ended in September 2010, and that of PRIs in July 2011. Since then, these bodies have been under the rule of special officers, in the absence of elected councils. (INN)