Organisational polls in TDP from today

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, DEC. 14. The Telugu Desam Party is fully geared to conduct the biennial organisational elections to an estimated 65,000 booth committees and nearly 35,000 villages from December 15 to 21.

Between eight to ten lakh partymen will be elected to various posts by the ordinary and active members who were enrolled recently in an equally massive exercise. The TDP has 65 lakh members on its rolls.

The polls will be conducted by 5,000 election officers, who have already fanned out to their allotted villages. They will visit one village each day for one week as per a programme already intimated to the local coordination committees.

These primary-level polls are a run-up to the State-level elections which are expected to be completed before the TDP's annual conference, Mahanadu, on May 28 next year. In the second phase, elections will be held to the Mandal, Municipal and Corporation Division units towards January end and the district units in February-March 2001.

As a prelude to the organisational elections, all the district ad hoc committees held meetings throughout the State on Thursday to put the arrangements in place. The TDP president, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, separately held a teleconference with his Ministers and briefed them about their tasks. He advised them to extensively tour their respective districts during the week-long polls to motivate the cadre to take part in the elections.

The TDP spokesman, Mr. R. Chandrasekhara Reddy, said the election process in each village would be preceded by hoisting of the party flag at 11 a.m. Later, the election officer would read out a message of the TDP president and encourage the partmen to debate it. Polling, wherever necessary, will take place from 2.30 to 4.30 p.m. after which the local party would review organisational matters.

Results of the elections would be transmitted in their respective constituencies by the local MLA or the in-charge to the Revenue Division-level observers on December 22. A meeting of the district party convenors, district-level coordinators, revenue division observers besides MLAs and constituency in-charges will be held here on December 24 to review the election process.

Mr. Chandrasekhara Reddy said each election officer would be given a diary to note down his observations about the conduct of the elections and his interaction with local leaders such as the sarpanch, village education committee chief and self-help group leaders. He would also be required to report back to the party the local political conditions.

The spokesman said that this was the largest-ever organisational election conducted by any political party in the country and that too with the span of one week. This exercise would help the TDP build a strong organisational network throughout the State, he added.

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