K Chandrasekhar Rao wants Lok Sabha polls in Telangana in 1st phase

Hyderabad: Hoping that the Election Commission of India will consider its request for holding elections to the Lok Sabha seats in Telangana state in the first phase, the state government is taking steps to conduct polls to the Zilla Parishads and Mandal Parishads soon after the polling for the Lok Sabha.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had requested the Election Commission to conduct the Lok Sabha elections in the first phase so that the government could conduct the elections to the Zilla Parishads and Mandal Parishads in the gap between completion of polling and the date of results of the Lok Sabha polls.

Expecting that the EC would consider the request of the CM, the Panchayat Raj authorities have already reorganised the Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTCs) taking into consideration the newly constituted 32 districts (except the area that falls under the GHMC).

According to the authorities, following the reorganisation the number of MPTCs in the states came down from 6, 473 to 5,984 in view of the constitution of 68 new municipalities.

The officials explained that with the formation of the new districts, the number of Zilla Parishads in the state increases from 9 to 32 and 535 current mandals would be treated as Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies.

The officials said that the State Election Commission has already asked the Panchayat Raj department to prepare the voters list based on the voters lists which were notified by the EC during the Assembly elections in the state, by the end of March this year.