3-phased local body polls in Telagnana from May 6

Barely a month after the Lok Sabha elections, Telangana will have three-phased polls to the zonal and district level local bodies beginning May 6.

A notification was issued Saturday for the polls to 5,817 madal parishad territorial constituencies (MPTCs) and 538 zilla parishad territorial constituencies (ZPTCs), Telangana State Election Commissioner V Nagi Reddy told reporters here.

The first phase would held on May 6 while the second the third phases on May 10 and May 14 respectively, he said.

Telangana has been in the grip of election fever since December last when the assembly polls were held. In January, elections to the panchayats were conducted.

Elections to 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state were held on April 11.

Reddy said around 1.56 crore voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in the coming elections to the two upper tiers of local bodies.

The Telangana government had earlier conveyed its readiness to the SEC for the conduct of the polls between April 22 and May 14.

The elections will be held through ballot papers and the votes will be counted on May 27, he said.

Meanwhile, state BJP President K Laxman petitioned the central Election Commission urging it to advise the Telangana government to conduct the local body polls after the end of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections across the country.

In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, a copy of which was released to media here, he said the decision toconduct the polls when the entire nation was busy with the generalelections raised "serious questions of propriety".