The Hindu : Front Page : Poll schedule for Upper House in A.P.

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Friday, Feb 09, 2007
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Poll schedule for Upper House in A.P.

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Thursday announced holding of elections for 75 of the 90 seats in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council on March 17. Elections will be held for eight graduates' constituencies, eight teachers' constituencies, 28 local authorities' constituencies (barring the two local authorities constituencies of Hyderabad (two members) and Ranga Reddy) and 31 seats to be elected by MLAs.

The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council Act, 2005 was passed on November 1, 2006 paving the way for the constitution of a new Legislative Council in the State after a gap of nearly 20 years, comprising 90 members — 31 to be elected by MLAs, 31 to be elected from local authorities', eight from graduates' and eight from teachers' constituencies and the remaining 12 members to be nominated by the Governor.

For holding elections from the local authorities', graduates' and teachers' constituencies, the constituencies were required to be delimited first and then the electoral rolls for the constituencies prepared. The required data for this purpose was obtained from the State Government and analysed.

Whereas all the 8 graduates' and 8 teachers' constituencies are single member constituencies, out of the 23 local authorities' constituencies of the State, the following eight are double member constituencies making the total seats from these constituencies 31, — Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, Chittoor, Anantapur and Hyderabad.

The Commission is consistently following the policy of holding elections to the local authorities' constituencies only when 75 per cent of the constituent local bodies and again 75 per cent of the total electorate in each local authorities' constituency are in existence.

As far as the Hyderabad local authorities' and Ranga Reddy local authorities' constituencies are concerned, the term of the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad is expiring on February 10 resulting in virtual non-existence of total electorate in that constituency and the electors in position with respect to Ranga Reddy local authorities' constituencies are only about 63 per cent as on date, which is against the policy of the holding elections from such constituencies. Hence, the EC decided not to hold the polls for the 3 seats from these two local authorities' constituencies till the strength of their members and local bodies in position are 75 % or more.

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