Andhra Pradesh Holds Polls for 92 Urban Local Bodies
Amaravati, November 1: Andhra Pradesh is holding elections for 92 urban local bodies, with polling beginning under strict security arrangements.
According to State Election Commission officials, voting started at 7 am at 11,378 polling stations in 79 bodies. These include 13 municipal corporations and several municipalities and nagar panchayats. Voting will continue until 5 pm.
About 99.35 lakh voters will determine the outcome for 10,262 contestants vying for mayor, chairperson and ward-level posts.
Bodies Where Results Were Pre-Decided
In 17 municipalities and nagar panchayats, chairperson elections were won unopposed. Eight of them, namely Allagadda, Dachepalli, Darsi, Gurazala, Kamalapuram, Piduguralla, Proddatur and Raichoti, also had ward members elected unopposed. The winning candidates in these posts were from the ruling NDA.
Field of Candidates
Thirteen municipal corporations have 153 candidates for the mayor's post. Seventy municipalities have 367 candidates for chairperson positions.
Among the 922 corporator wards, 804 are seeing polls, while 118 were won unopposed. Some 3,077 candidates are fighting for the 804 contested wards. Mayoral elections are proceeding even in wards where the corporator seat was uncontested.
Meanwhile, 6,669 candidates are in the race for 2,382 wards across municipalities and nagar panchayats.
The electoral roll includes 59,97,918 voters in municipal corporations and 39,38,096 in municipalities and nagar panchayats.
Security Measures
A total of 84,815 presiding officers and other staff have been posted for the election, supported by 3,720 micro observers. Webcasting has been set up at 1,835 polling stations, with one expert deployed at each. The state election commission has also placed 12,666 CCTV cameras to aid peaceful, free and fair polling.
Political Battle Lines
The ruling NDA, made up of the Telugu Desam Party, Jana Sena Party and Bharatiya Janata Party, is competing directly with the YSR Congress Party. The alliance is appealing to voters to back the development and welfare schemes launched during the last two and a half years. The opposition YSRCP has pointed to the alliance's failures.
The NDA aims to repeat its 2024 general election performance, while the YSRCP hopes to bounce back after its crushing defeat in the assembly elections.
Seat-sharing among NDA partners has allotted the mayor posts of Greater Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada corporations to the TDP and Jana Sena Party, respectively.
The election was originally slated for October 28. It was put off on the Supreme Court's directions after violence made it impossible for many candidates to file nominations. Votes will be counted on November 3.