VIJAYAWADA: As many as 2,786 panchayats in Andhra Pradesh are set to go to polls in the second phase on Saturday, Principal Secretary (Panchayat Raj and Rural Development department) Gopal Krishna Dwivedi said.
Though the elections were to be held for 3,328 panchayat sarpanches, 539 have been unanimously elected while no nomination was filed for three villages in Nellore, Kurnool and Srikakulam districts. A total of 7,507 candidates are in the fray for 2,786 sarpanch posts.
With the unanimous elections of 12,604 ward members, 44,876 candidates will fight it out for 20,817 wards on Saturday. No nominations were filed for 149 wards. Informing that 29,304 polling stations have been identified for the second phase of polling, Dwivedi, in a release on Friday, said 5,480 of them were identified as sensitive and 4,181 as hyper-sensitive booths.
Stating that necessary measures for polling personnel and voters are in place in view of Covid-19, the official said PPE would be given to Covid-positive persons. “All Covid-positive patients will be allowed to vote in the last hour of polling. Separate arrangements are made for women polling personnel. Necessary arrangements are in place to handle any untoward incident during the polling time in coordination with the police department,” he said. The panchayat polls began from February 9 and would go on till February 21.