Kiran Kumar Reddy Government has yet another challenge after cooperative and DCCB polls in the State as the Supreme Court cleared the legal hurdles for local body polls.

The SC order paved the way for the election for 22 zilla parishads, 1100 mandal praja parishads, 108 municipalities and 16 municipal corporations in the State.

The State Government stalled the elections to local bodies though the term for zilla and mandal parishads and municipalities came to an end in July 2011 itself. Owing to the legal hurdle in the form of reservation to be followed in the elections, the election was kept pending. The State government prepared to hold the elections with reservations of 30 per cent to backward classes. But the High Court had objected to it as the overall reservation including SC/ST and all other categories should not exceed a mandatory ceiling of 50 per cent. Then the State Government had approached the Supreme Court challenging the HC order. The Supreme Court delivered its order on Monday in favour of State Government. However, the court observed that the reservations could be considered as per the 2001 census.

The challenge the Kiran Reddy Government has to face was that his rival parties like Telugu Desam and YSR Congress had already in the campaign trials with their much publicised "Vastunna Mee kosam" and "Maro Praja prasthanam" by the parties respectively. Neither the Chief Minister nor the PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana made no effort to reach the people. Though the Congress party has a past record of winning number of zilla parishads, mandal parishads and municipalities in the 2006 local body polls, the party had lost its ground at the gross-root level after the demise of YSR.

The confidence levels of the Kiran Kumar Government are appears to be high after winning majority of cooperative societies in the recently concluded elections. The same is being carried to the AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi. It is felt that the TDP and the YSR Congress have not taken the PACS polls that much seriously, but they would definitely consider the local body polls as pre-finals for the 2014 general elections.

Undoubtedly, if agreed or not It will be a litmus test for the Chief Minister and the PCC chief, especially in the background of Rahul Gandhi, who is understood to have considered Andhra as the most challenging zone along with Maharashtra for 2014 elections. He had continuous deliberations with the leaders of these two states aiming 70 per cent out of 100 parliament seats in 2014 polls.
-Sakshipost