Governor gives away Democracy Awards for conduct of rural local bodies’ polls

The Indian democracy and electoral system are most unique compared to several other countries across the world and the conduct of elections to local bodies was highly challenging, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan said here on Saturday.

Speaking after presenting Telangana State Democracy Awards given by the State Election Commission (SEC), she said conducting local bodies elections in a transparent and unbiased manner was very challenging. Complimenting State Election Commissioner V. Nagi Reddy for conducting free and fair elections to rural local bodies last year she said providing equal opportunities to all contestants by training over 2.5 lakh personnel was a huge task.

She recollected that she had her vote registered in South Chennai before coming here as the Governor but the polling used to be less than 50% always in spite of the area having many educated families. About 90% polling registered in the rural local bodies elections in Telangana was an indication of high awareness among people, she noted.

Ensuring free and fair elections by resolving problems was commendable in our system, in spite of the influence of political, money and muscle power in elections, the Governor said.

Creating awareness

Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Errabelli Dayakar Rao said general awards would come in recognition of hard work but the Democracy Awards were the result of encouragement to create awareness at different levels. Conducting polling for 12,750 gram panchayats, 539 mandal parishad and 32 zilla parishads without any remarks and not much of repolling was highly commendable, he stated.

Stating that the role of State Election Commission was challenging the Minister said the election officials would have to face criticism from political parties and contestants even for minute mistake as part of conducting free and fair polls.

‘All laws followed’

Mr. Nagi Reddy said they had followed and implemented all election laws in the local bodies elections and the awards were being given in tune with a decision of the standing council of the State Election Commissions. Maharashtra had presented the awards first and Telangana was second.

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, Principal Secretary (PR&RD) Vikas Raj, SEC Secretary Ashok Kumar and others attended.

A total of 192 officers and election personnel received the awards including Medchal-Malkajgiri District Collector M.V. Reddy, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri District Collector Anita Ramachandran, Adilabad District Collector D. Divya, former District Collector of Karimnagar Sarfaraz Ahmed, former Collector of Jogulamba-Gadwal K. Shashanka, Khammam District Collector R.V. Karnan and Sangareddy District Collector M. Hanumantha Rao, Additional DGP (L&O) Jitender and others.