Hyderabad: The Telangana government will hold the Gram Panchayat elections in three phases on January 21, 25 and 30 , 2019 and complete the process as per the Supreme Court directives. The dates for the conduct of elections have been confirmed by the Telangana State Election Commissioner V Nagi Reddy who released the notification.

In all, elections to 1.26 lakh ward members and sarpanch posts would be held in 12,741 gram panchayats. The timings for the Panchayath elections would be from morning 7:00AM in the morning till 1:00 PM in the afternoon.The counting would happen on the same day and the results also would be declared on the same date, he said. They will conduct the poll in the old method of ballot paper.

1st Phase- January 21, 2019- 4480 Gram Panchayaths

2nd Phase -January 25, 2019- 4137 Gram Panchayaths

3rd Phase: January 30, 2019 -4115 Gram Panchayaths

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had made it clear after winning the elections that the Panchayat Raj elections would be his top priority and would enhance the quota for reservations to 50% and also bring an ordinance for this.

During the erstwhile combined state of Andhra Pradesh the reservations for SCs, STs and BCs was 60.55 %. The Telangana government filed an appeal against the High Court order not to cross the limit of 50 per cent reservations in Panchayat polls, but the apex court refused to accord the sanction.

So the TRS government had proposed 34 % reservations to BCs, 24 % to SCs and 9 % to STs which adds up to 67 per cent. But if the government follows the court order, the percentage of reservation for the BCs will have to be limited to 23 % and political analysts say that antagonising the BCs could have an adverse impact on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019 .

Sources say that the Chief Minister is seeking legal opinion whether to seek more time from the court to conduct the elections and in the meantime might go ahead and issue the ordinance for providing a total of 67 % reservation for BCs, ST and SCs .

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