Overruling the plea made byopposition parties for postponement, the State Election Commission on Friday announced it will issue notification on Saturday for elections to mandal and zilla parishad territorial constituencies in Andhra Pradesh."We have decided to go ahead with the conduct of the elections. Notification will be issued tomorrow," State Election Commissioner N Ramesh Kumar said.Barring the ruling YSR Congress, opposition parties including TDP, Congress and Jana Sena, sought postponement of the elections in view of the coronavirus scare.Talking to reporters after a meeting with representatives of all political parties, no EVMs would be used in the elections as the parties did not have confidence in the machines."Though we have no doubts on the EVMs, we have decided to go with ballot papers," Kumar added.Meanwhile, SEC sources said a final call on the exact schedule of elections would be taken by Saturday."Initially we wanted to conduct the elections to MPTCs and ZPTCs in two phases but given the circumstances we will possibly have them in one go. There will be clarity on this tomorrow," the sources said.The likely date for MPTC and ZPTC polls is March 21 while municipalities and municipal corporations will go to polls on the 27th.Elections to these local bodies were overdue since July last year when the five-year term ended.With the state high court recently striking down a Government Order that provided 59.85 per cent reservation to SCs, STs and BCs in the rural and urban local bodies, the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy regime decided to go to polls restricting the quota to 50 per cent.Formal notification for the elections to MPTC and ZPTCs will be issued on Saturday and the last date for filing nominations is March 11.For the municipal elections slated for March 27, the notification will be issued on the 13th.Counting of votes in rural and urban local bodies will be taken up on March 29.
