All eyes on voter enrolment ahead of Graduates' MLC election

Tirupati: Ahead of MLC elections scheduled to be held early next year, all political parties seem to be focusing on managing the voters' list. The Election Commission has cancelled the previous voters' list for Graduates and Teachers MLC elections and asked the eligible voters to enrol afresh before November 7.

The main parties YSRCP and TDP and the UTF have finalised their candidates for Prakasam, Nellore and Chittoor districts Graduates constituency and they have entered the campaign mode already. During the course, they are concentrating more on voter registration now as there is hardly one month for the process to get completed.

The leaders of both YSRCP and TDP have instructed their cadres to take the voter registration seriously and ensure all graduates are registered without fail. It is a known fact that several graduates are generally not interested to enrol as voters for the Graduates MLC election due its cumbersome process.

To enrol as a voter any graduate needs to submit their degree certificate or provisional certificate with gazetted officer's attestation. Several people who have settled down in their careers may not have their degree certificates readily with them. Instead of finding them, they simply ignore the registration process. During the previous elections held in March 2017, the Graduates' constituency comprising Prakasam, Nellore and Chittoor districts had around 1.15 lakh voters out of which about 65,000 have exercised their franchise. Taking into consideration the number of graduates coming out of colleges and universities every year, this number is considered too small.

Political parties are making their presence here and convincing the graduates to give the copies of their certificates to them so that they can complete the process of registration without any headache to the individuals. The district leaderships of parties have been holding meetings with the cadres for the past 15 to 20 days and motivating them to get involved actively in the enrolment process. They are hopeful of enrolling maximum number of graduates if the exercise could be carried out in a planned way.

Meanwhile, the YSRCP has finalised the candidature of Pernati Syam Prasad Reddy while the TDP announced the name of K Srikanth as its candidate for the Graduates' constituency. The PDF, UTF, STU and other people's organisations have been supporting Meegada Venkateswar Reddy's candidature.

BJP and Jana Sena have not made their choices yet. The election will be held to elect the new MLC in place of Y Srinivasulu Reddy of PDF whose term will expire on March 29, 2023.