SC nod for Panchayat polls in AP

The stage is set for the Panchayat Raj elections in Andhra Pradesh with the Supreme Court on Monday allowing the state government to conduct the three-stage election process based on the existing reservation policy.

The elections, which were due in July last year, were deferred by the government after the AP high court directed the state to limit the total reservations to 50 per cent as against the existing 60.55 per cent.

The Supreme Court, in its interim orders on a petition filed by the state government challenging the high court ruling, has allowed the government to go ahead with the elections based on the existing reservations for the time being. The court, however, said it would take a final view on the question of the percentage of reservations in local bodies in its final judgement.

Besides the Panchayat elections, the state government had also deferred elections to municipal bodies since September 2011 on the premise that it would want to conduct them based on the 2011 census. The Opposition parties in the past had accused the government of intentionally postponing the local body polls for fear of adverse outcomes.

Following the Supreme Court orders, Panchayat Raj minister K Jaana Reddy said the government would soon hold the elections based on the existing reservation policy, which gives 34 per cent reservations to BCs, 18.3 per cent to SCs and 8.25 per cent to STs in the local bodies.

The state has failed to secure around Rs 3,000 crore in central grants from the 13th Finance Commission during the current financial year for not conducting the local body elections. It has also lost about Rs 1,000 crore grants last year after the Centre stopped the grants meant for local bodies from the second quarter.