GHMC polls likely to be held in mid-October

Hyderabad, Sept 17 : 

As per the schedule the election notification to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is expected any time after Ramzan later this month so that polls could be held in mid-October. But it is very unlikely as the officials are still yet to finalise election process due to pending of cases in the courts.

The State Election Commission and Municipal officers on Thursday convened a meeting to complete the election process before October.

The Municipal officers are currently involved in the exercise of finalising the BC voters data so as to determine the wards to be reserved for them. And all indications are that the polls could be held sometime in the third week of October.

GHMC Commissioner S P Singh announced that polling would be conducted for 150 wards of which 92 will be ‘reserved’ and 58 will be in the general category. There will be 28 seats reserved for women of the general category and 33 wards for Backward Classes (General) and 17 for BC (Women).

There will be one ward each reserved for ST (General) and ST (Women) and there will be eight wards for SC (General) and four for SC (Women). Total population of GHMC has been put at about 54 lakh with SC population at 4, 29,608 and ST population at 54,915.

Late chief minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s sudden death has cast a cloud of uncertainty over polls to the GHMC.

YSR was keen on early polls to GHMC, had the legal issues not come in the way, the GHMC polls would have been completed by now. While the Supreme Court has cleared the path, there are still a couple of petitions before the High Court questioning reservation of Jubilee Hills division for women and Ameerpet for Scheduled Tribes, etc.

These cases were to have come up for hearing last week but could not be taken up due to the fire mishap which occurred in the High Court recently. The cases have been listed for Monday and the hearing is expected to go on for a few days. However, it would not deter the State Election Commission (SEC) to go ahead with the election notification unless specific orders are issued, say officials.

“We are ready. It’s up to the Government and SEC to act,” said a senior GHMC official. Officials and key elected representatives of the ruling party disclosed that the matter would be brought before Chief Minister K. Rosaiah soon. Party men are gung ho about their prospects, yet, the Congress lacks a star campaigner.