Polling in the elections to 5,790 gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh passed off peacefully but the polling could not be held in some places due to heavy rains and floods and at some places due to some technical snags.
Though the elections were held on non-party basis, the major political parties were making claims of victories of their supporters and sympathisers in the elections.
The polling to 25,000 odd gram panchayats in the State were staggered in three phases and Tuesday was the first phase of elections. In all elections to the 6,863 gram panchayats were to be held in the first phase. But 800 of them were elected unanimously and polling in 237 panchayats was put off due to weather conditions. On Tuesday polling in 13 other places was also postponed for various reasons. Navin Mittal, Secretary, State Election Commission said that an estimated 80 per cent of the voters cast their votes in the polling which ended at 1 pm. Counting of votes were taken up soon after that and results were still coming in.
According to the preliminary results the main fight was between Congress and Telugu Desam in Andhra region districts while YSR Congress party was claiming big victories in four districts of Rayalaseema.