Nizamabad: Cooperative society elections to be held on Feb 15

Nizamabad: After a long gap of seven years, the government gave green signal to conduct elections for Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS). Election schedule was released on Thursday (January 30). The elections will be held on February 15 and counting of votes will be conducted on the same day.

It seems that the TRS government, buoyed with winning series of elections, including the recent municipal elections, took the decision to go for the cooperative elections.

The last elections for the PACS were conducted on February 2, 2013. The same ruling class has been continuing in office for the past seven years like never before, as their tenure has been extended four times for every six months.

The officials were planning to conduct elections of cooperative societies since the time of Assembly elections. They even announced voters' details, identified polling statins and appointed election officials.

But they were forced to postpone the schedule due to MLA, Panchayat, mandal parishat, parliament and municipal elections. There are about 141 cooperative societies in the erstwhile joint Nizamabad district. After district division, Nizamabad got 87 societies.

With the formation of new societies for Bussapur of Mendora mandal and Mothe of Velpur mandal of Balconda constituency, the number of societies was increased to 89 in Nizamabad district. The government observed that each mandal must have at least two societies, but the formation of new mandals made it mandatory for the government.

Following this, the officials proposed another nine societies in Nizamabad district, but elections will be held for 89 societies only.

In Nizamabad, there are 89 societies and 1,50,039 members (farmers), of this, 1,13,382 have voting right. Elections will be held for 89 new directors and 1,157 new chairmen.

In Kamareddy district, there are 55 cooperative societies and 1,27,349 voters. Of this, 1,02,456 have voting right. Elections will be held for 63 new directors and 819 new chairmen.

Nizamabad District Cooperative Officer Simhachalam said that they are ready for conducting elections for cooperative societies as the election notification was announced.

"All arrangements for the elections are completed. Ballot papers and boxes are ready and election officials are appointed after giving training," he informed.

Election details

Election notice : February 3

Nominations : February 6 - 8

Scrutiny : February 9

Withdrawals : February 10

Polling : February 15 (From 7 am to 1 pm)

Counting and results : February 15 (Immediately after voting)

Result : February 15 (Immediately after counting)