Polls for seema council constituencies on March 13th

Kadapa: The Election Commission of India has decided to hold biennial elections to the graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council on March 13th.

Polls will be held in the graduates constituencies of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam with 1,61,251 voters; Kadapa, Anantapur and Kurnool with 1,97,334 voters and Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor with 1,81,564 voters.

Similarly, under teachers’ constituencies, the districts of Mahabubnagar, Rangareddy, Hyderabad with 15,053 voters; Kadapa, Anantapur, Kurnool with 12,966 voters; and Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor with 42,262 voters will go to polls.

The election code comes into effect from Tuesday. Due to the election code Ministers from the state and the Centre shall not make official visits in any district in which the biennial elections will be held.

Referring to the ongoing Rachabanda program, Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal clarified to the media persons at the Secretariat on Tuesday that the EC was not aware of it, and it would be examined whether any policy scheme would attract and fall under the purview of the code of conduct.

The ministers addressing the Rachabanda are not expected to call on officers for participation even in the districts where elections are not held.

Any violation will attract punishment from the statutory provisions.

The Commission has directed that special video teams shall be put in place for every tehsil.

Every political meeting will be videographed. Ministers and other important political functionaries visiting the districts will be video-trailed.

The election notification will be issued on February 15th.

Last date for filing of nominations will be on February 22nd, scrutiny of nominations will take place on February 23rd and the last date for withdrawal is February 25th.

The counting of votes will be taken up on March 15th, and by March 21st, the election process will be completed.

The total electors as on December 22nd, 2010, in the above constituencies are 5,40,149.