Kakinada local body goes ahead with elections but all parties oppose it

KAKINADA: While the civic authorities here are going ahead with preparations for the Kakinada Municipal Corporation elections by September, all parties have stressed that the polls should be held only after merging the surrounding villages as was proposed by the AP government some time ago.

The plan for merger of the surrounding villages like Vakalapudi, Valasapakala, Turangi, Indrapalem, Ramanaiahpeta, Cheediga, the 42 and 48 wards to KMC was long-pending. The present council’s term will expire by September and hence KMC started the process to hold the polls.

Officials are preparing the voters list and linking voter ID cards to Aadhar numbers through the ward secretariats. However, the S Atchutapuram and Swamy Nagar villages have been merged with KMC last time and divisions have been allocated to villages like the 48 and 42 wards respectively. But, last time, in these two wards, the election was not conducted due to legal problems. 

Meanwhile, the Telugu Desam, BJP, Jana Sena, Congress, CPI, CPM, BSP, RPI, AAP, New Democracy, India Praja Bandhu, Liberation, Jana Shakthi, Jaibharat Access, Welfare Party and others held a round table meeting on Friday at Vakalapudi village community hall.

It was also attended by civic organisations like the Poura Samkshema Sangham and former sarpanches, ZPTCs, MPTCs, former corporators.

The party representatives said at the meeting that when these villages were merged in the Kakinada Municipal Corporation seven years back, there was no council for the municipality. The merger resolution by the special officer was thus not legally valid. So, the elections could not be conducted to the KMC in 2017.

The Poura Samkshema Sangham convener Dusarlapudi Ramana Raju said the present council should pass a resolution for merger of these villages and go for elections after including these villages in its ambit.

The meeting felt that these villages have not conducted local body polls and were not merged in KMC either. This situation was against the law. “Due to the lack of elections to the local bodies, the people are not getting basic amenities like drinking water, drainage line etc. If the villages are merged in Kakinada, the population of the corporation will rise to 5 lakh and 72 divisions. It would become Greater Kakinada and more funds can come to the council,” it was felt.

Jana Sena PAC member Pantham Venkateswara said the corporation should not go for elections without merging these villages.