Telangana Panchayat Raj Act amended unanimously

HYDERABAD: Candidates contesting for elections as ward member, sarpanch, MPTC and ZPTC in Telangana will no longer be disqualified for failing to submit their election expenditure details to the State Election Commission (SEC), as it was not mandatory.

The Telangana Legislative Assembly passed a Bill to amend the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, 2018, to this effect on Friday.

Minister for panchayat raj and rural development Errabelli Dayakar Rao introduced ‘The Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2021’ in the House, which was approved unanimously by a voice vote. However, the provision to alter the name of any village in the bill led to a tussle between ruling and opposition parties.

AIMIM strongly opposed the provision and demanded the government to drop it immediately. Party floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi said "Don't kill old names of existing villages. There will be no objections if you name new villages or gram panchayats as per your choice. If changing of names is allowed, then tomorrow you may change the names of Nizamabad and Karimnagar."

However, the government strongly refuted these charges.

"The government has no intention to change the names of any villages or towns. Those changes will be considered only if respective gram panchayats pass resolutions and refer them to the government. Such resolutions will be placed in the Legislative Assembly for approval," the minister clarified.

Dayakar Rao stated that a large number of sarpanches, MPTCs, ZPTCs etc are getting disqualified as per the existing Act due to failure in submitting election expenditure details due to lack of awareness in rural areas.