Heavy rains: Panchayat polls in some AP villages rescheduled

The Andhra Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) today rescheduled the ongoing gram panchayat election process in several villages in the state in view of the incessant rains.
The villages are in the districts of Adilabad, East Godavari, Karimnagar, Khammam, Nizamabad and Warangal, SEC officials said.
The election programme in the villages has been synchronised with the third phase of poll, they said.
As per the altered programme, the polling in these villages would be held on July 31 (from 7 AM to 1 PM) and the votes will be counted on the same day (from 2 PM onwards). The results will be declared after completion of voting.

Polling in villages, where election process has now been rescheduled, was originally scheduled to be held as part of the first or second phases.
As many as 2,642 sarpanchs in the state have already been elected unopposed. Elections would be held for the office of sarpanch (village head) in 18,721 gram panchayats.

The gram panchayat elections, wherever required, will be held in three phases on July 23, 27 and 31.
The nominations were filed from July 7 to 13 and the last date for the withdrawal of candidature was July 17.
Andhra Pradesh has 21,592 gram panchayats, of which 21,491 are going to polls.