All set for AP urban local body polls on March 10

VIJAYAWADA: Armed with the High Court nod, the State Election Commission (SEC) is to go ahead with the conduct of urban local body polls for 12 municipal corporations and 75 municipalities and nagar panchayats on March 10.

Accordingly, the SEC will hold regional conferences at Tirupati, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam on February 27, 28 and March 1 respectively, to review preparedness of the district administrations for conducting elections. The SEC will also interact with representatives of registered political parties with reserved symbols at the state-level around 9.30 am on March 1. The thrust of the meeting will be on the implementation of model code of conduct and conducting elections in a free and fair manner. Each party can nominate one representative for the meeting.

SEC secretary K. Kanna Babu, in a statement issued here on Friday, stated that state election commissioner N. Ramesh Kumar will hold a regional conference at Tirupati on Saturday. He will separately meet district officials and representatives from political parties from Chittoor, Anantapur, Kadapa, Kurnool and Nellore. Similarly, he will hold a meet in Vijayawada the next day with those from West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam. On March 1, he will meet officials and political party representatives from Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari in Visakhapatnam.

The focus of the regional conferences will be on implementation of poll code and preventing distribution of money and liquor, measures to ensure high voter turnout and distribution of authenticated photo voter slips.

The SEC has appointed 13 IAS officers as general observers and 13 IFS officers as expenditure observers.