VIJAYAWADA: The Election Commission (EC) issued the schedule for MLA quota MLC elections in Andhra Pradesh to fill three vacant posts. The issue of notifications will start on November 9, elections will be held on November 29, and the process will end on December 1 as per the schedule. The elections were to be held in the month of May and July in AP and Telangana respectively but were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The commission having reassessed the situation in the Telugu states and after taking into consideration all relevant facts, now decided to conduct the biennial elections to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council by members of the Legislative Assembly.
According to the schedule announced by the EC on Sunday, the notification would be issued on November 9, last date of nominations is November 16, scrutiny of nominations would be held on November 17 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is November 22.
The polling, if required, will be held on November 29 from 9 am to 4 pm and the counting of votes would take place on the same day from 5 pm.
According to the EC bulletin, the terms of office of three MLCs in Andhra Pradesh – Chinna Govinda Reddy Devasani (YSR Congress Party), Mohammed Ahmed Shariff (Telugu Desam Party) and Somu Veerraju (Bharatiya Janata Party) ended on May 31 last.
Since these MLCs have to be elected under MLAs’ quota, the YSR Congress Party has more than the required numbers in AP Assembly hence the ruling party can easily bag three MLC seats, even without the conduct of elections.
Besides these three MLC posts, the ruling YSRC is going to win another 11 MLC posts under local bodies quota in the coming days. The YSRC would get a majority in the Legislative Council by winning a total of 14 MLC seats. The ruling party presently has 18 MLCs which would be increased to 21 with winning of three MLA quota MLCs and further to 32 out of total 58 seats by grabbing another 11 MLC seats of local bodies quota. The ruling party would grab Council chairman and deputy chairmen posts due to its strength.
According to the sources, the YSRC is planning to give the MLC post to D.C. Govinda Reddy who is in-charge of the party in Budvel constituency. Further, YSRC is thinking of giving one MLC post to SC and another one to women.
There is huge competition in YSRC as two to four candidates in every district seek MLC posts who intensified efforts to get the posts through political stalwarts in the party.
