The Communist Party of India (CPI) will tie up with the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to fight the elections to rural and urban local bodies in Andhra Pradesh. The local body polls are scheduled to be held between March 21 and 29 in four phases.
CPI state secretary K Ramakrishna told reporters after a meeting with TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu that the exact seat-sharing position would be known in a day or two.
"We already have an alliance with the CPI(M). Accordingly, we have requested the TDP not to field candidates where the CPI(M) is contesting," he said.
The CPI has decided to ally with the TDP to fight the YSRCP, led by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The Left parties allied with the Jana Sena Party (JSP) for the 2019 general elections, but subsequently, JSP forged an alliance with the BJP.
The BJP-JSP combine would fight the local body polls together. It was recently announced that the alliance will contest all seats, and a manifesto is expected to be released soon.
The state is set to go to polls in three phases. In the first phase on March 21, Mandal and Zilla Parishad elections will be held, followed by the second phase on March 23, when the elections to municipalities will be held. In the third and final phase, elections to grade-1 and grade-2 Gram Panchayats will take place on March 27 and 29. All the results will be announced by March 29.
Andhra Pradesh has 13 districts with 669 Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies' (ZPTC), and 676 mandals with 9,639 Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTC).
The YSRCP government had earlier issued an order mandating 59.85% reservations to Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Backward Classes (BC) in the local body polls. However, the High Court scrapped the order, directing the state to adhere to 50% reservations as per Supreme Court guidelines.
With PTI inputs