Voting for the Mandal and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies elections (MPTC, ZPTC), is underway in the state of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday which commenced at 7 AM.

The State Election Commission(SEC) has already made necessary arrangements in place and was ready to conduct the polling.

Earlier State Election Commissioner Nilam Sawhney conducted a teleconference with district Collectors and police officials over the poll preparedness and security arrangements to be made to ensure free conduct of polls.

Over 2.46 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the elections for 7,220 MPTCs and 515 ZPTCs seats in 13 districts across the state.

Srikakulam: Polling for 37 ZPTC and 590 MPTC seats

Vizianagaram: Polling for 31 ZPTC and 487 MPTC seats

Visakhapatnam: Polling for 37 ZPTC and 612 MPTC seats

East Godavari: Polling for 61 ZPTC and 1000 MPTC seats

West Godavari: Polling for 45 ZPTC and 781 MPTC seats

Krishna: Polling for 41 ZPTC and 648 MPTC seats

Guntur: Polling for 45 ZPTC and 571 MPTC seats

Prakasam: Polling for 41 ZPTC, 387 MPTC seats‌

Nellore: Polling for 34 ZPTC and 362 MPTC seats

Chittoor: Polling for 33 ZPTC and 419 MPTC seats

YSR Kadapa: Polling for 12 ZPTC, 117 MPTC seats

Kurnool: Polling for 36 ZPTC and 484 MPTC seats

Anantapur: Polling for 62 ZPTC and 782 MPTC seats

There a total of 27,751 polling stations set up across the state for the Parishad elections. Out of these 6,492 were sensitive centres and 6,314 were declared to be hypersensitive centres.

Over 1,72,787 officials have been deployed by the election authorities for the smooth conduct of the polls

Voting commenced at 7 AM and will end at 5 PM. Voting in the Maoist-affected areas will be conducted till 2 PM

Already, 2,371 MPTC seats and 126 ZPTC seats were won unanimously when the election process first began in March 2020.

According to Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Principal Secretary Gopal Krishna Dwivedi, elections for eight ZPTCs and 456 MPTC seats were not being held for different reasons.

For MPTCs, 18,782 candidates and for ZPTCs 2,058 candidates are in the fray now.

Since the ink mark on the index finger placed during the panchayat elections has not yet faded for many people, the election authorities have directed poll officials to ink the little finger of the left hand during the MPTC/ZPTC elections.

Elections to MPTC and ZPTC were first notified in March 2020. They were postponed on March 15, 2020, following the spike in coronavirus cases.

After the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday struck down the interim stay on the MPTC, ZPTC elections, paved the way for the conduct of the polls to be held on April 8 as usual.

The Division Bench, however, ordered that counting of votes and declaration of results, scheduled for April 10, be not taken up until further orders.

Also Read: ZPTC, MPTC Elections Get Green Signal From AP High Court