After losing the legal battle with state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar over the conduct of local body elections in Andhra Pradesh, YSRC party president and Andhra Pradesh CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy appears to have taken the elections very seriously.
Jagan has given strict instructions to all his senior party leaders to see that the YSRC grabs almost all the gram panchayats, mostly unanimously.
Though the elections are held on non-party basis, at the field level, the contestants will definitely have affiliation to one party or the other.
He told them to use all the available resources to capture the gram panchayats, without giving any scope to the opposition.
While announcement of the cash incentives is one way of winning the elections unanimously, the party leaders were asked to offer additional incentives to capture the sarpanch post through “auctions.”
According to party sources, Jagan has given the targets to each MLA to ensure victory of the YSRC in not less than 80-90 of the gram panchayats in their respective constituencies unanimously.
“Wherever it is not possible to have unanimous elections, the MLAs have to put in the best efforts to grab them in the elections,” he told them.
Apparently, he asked the in-charge ministers in districts along with local MLAs to camp in the districts to monitor the implementation of strategies to win the panchayat polls. If necessary, they should also tour villages to campaign for the candidates, he suggested.
Jagan is confident that the welfare schemes being implemented by his government, especially the cash-transfer schemes, would fetch him maximum mileage in the panchayat elections.
“Distribution of pensions and the recently launched supply of essential commodities at the door step of the people are enough to win the panchayat elections,” he reportedly said.