Biennial polls to five seats in the Andhra Pradesh legislative council will be held on March 15.

Bypolls to one seat in the state legislative council, necessitated after the death of sitting MLC Challa Ramakrishna Reddy, will also be held on the same day.

The Election Commission of India said that the biennial elections are being held as four members of the Andhra Pradesh legislative council are retiring on March 29 while one seat is lying vacant following the resignation of a member on July 1 last year.

Gundumala Thippe Swamy, Gummidi Sandhya Rani, Vattikuti Veera Venkanna Chowdary and Shaik Mohammed Iqbal are retiring on March 29, while Subhaschandra Bose Pilli had resigned last year following his election to the Rajya Sabha.

According to the Election Commission, the notification for the biennial elections as well as byepolls will be issued on February 25.

"Last date of filling of nomination will be March 4 and the last date of withdrawal of nomination will be March 8. The counting of votes will take place soon after the polling concludes on March 15," said the Election Commission.

The poll panel also directed that every person shall wear face masks during all election related activities.

"Thermal scanning of all persons shall be carried out, sanitisers shall be made available at all locations and social distancing shall be maintained as per the extant Covid guidelines of the state government and the Ministry of Home Affairs," the EC said.

Meanwhile, after the third phase of polling in the panchayat elections in the state, both the YSRCP and the TDP claimed victory with both the parties announcing their own set of numbers. The Telugu Desam Party claimed that it bagged 1,069 sarpanch posts while the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) claimed that it breached the Kuppam fortress.

According to the TDP, the opposition party won 1,069 sarpanch posts compared to YSRCP 1,393 and Janasena and Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) alliance's eight victories by 12.30 am on Thursday morning. Former Chief Minister and TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu claimed that the TDP and its allies have posted good results and got 41.41 percent seats in the third phase of the panchayat polls.

Contradicting the TDP's claims, YSRCP leaders claimed that the ruling party won 2,442 sarpanch posts, compared to TDP's 501 and others winning 145, out of a total of 3,221 sarpanch posts.

As per YSRCPs calculations, 579 sarpanch posts went for unanimous elections in the third phase of the four phase panchayat polls.