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Hyderabad, October 8 (IANS) Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President Mahesh Kumar Gaur has expressed confidence that the process of elections to rural local bodies in Telangana will begin as per the schedule from Thursday.
The State Election Commission is set to issue the notification on Thursday for the first phase of voting for Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTC), Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTC).
The first phase of elections is to be held on 23 October.
However, the filing of two petitions in the High Court challenging the 42 per cent reservation for backward classes (BCs) has created uncertainty over the election notification.
The High Court, while hearing the petitions, adjourned the case till Thursday afternoon.
Although the petitioners pressed for a stay on the election process, the court refused to grant a stay and posted the matter for further hearing till 2.15 pm on Thursday.
The TPCC chief expressed confidence that the nomination process for the elections will start as per the schedule. He was also confident that the High Court would uphold the government order providing 42 percent reservation for backward classes.
He told media persons that the government presented strong arguments in support of backward class reservation. He said that after 90 years, a caste survey was conducted and on the basis of its report, the government gave 42 percent reservation to the backward classes.
Asserting that the government is serious on backward class reservation, Gaur accused the opposition BJP and BRS of conspiring to deny the backward classes the increased quota.
He was also confident that the Congress party would win 90 percent of the local bodies.
Elections for ZPTCs, MPTCs and Gram Panchayats are scheduled to be held in five phases in October-November.
MPTC and ZPTC elections will be held in two phases on October 23 and 27, while elections for gram panchayats will be held in three phases on October 31, November 4 and November 8.
More than 1.67 crore people will be able to cast their votes in these elections.
Counting of votes cast in ZPTCs and MPTCs will be done on November 11, while counting in gram panchayats will be done after polling.
Elections will be held in 565 mandals of 31 districts. Voting will be held for 565 ZPTC, 5,749 MPTC, 12,733 Gram Panchayat and 1,12,288 wards.
–IANS
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