He was responding to reports that the Janata Dal government in the State was reluctant to the electorate in fresh polls and hence the decision to postpone the gram panchayat elections. Denying the charge, he said the State in any case may have to go to the polls sooner than anticipated with the expected fall of the Central government.

Besides, with the Assembly polls also due in about 8 to 9 months' time, the State would have to ready for them. It was not true to say that the gram panchayat elections were being postponed by the Janata Dal in order to avoid facing the people.

He also denied reports that Panchayat Raj Minister M P Prakash was unhappy over the Cabinet decision to postpone the elections to the gram panchayats, which was being done in order toredefine the size of the constituency.

Reacting to media reports in this regard, Nanaiah told press persons that his colleague had neither walked out of the Cabinet meeting in protest nor had been upset over the decision. While all ministers had the right to express their individual opinions, the decision in this regard, was taken collectively he added.

The decision to restructure the gram panchayats based on population, had been taken in the wake of the report submitted to the government by a Janata Dal Committee under former party president B L Shankar's stewardship. It had also been proposed by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department and was not a unilateral move by the Cabinet, Nanaiah said.

``The State would bring an Ordinance to introduce these amendments to the Panchayat Raj Act and this would take time, hence the need to postpone the elections,'' he said. The Ordinance will seek to reconstitute the gram panchayats based on population figures as in the Mandal Panchayat model prevalentin 1985.

While the three-tier system will be maintained, the size of the panchayats would be reduced to a population of 2,600 - as was prevalent in the Mandal system - rather than the 5,800 population size introduced in 1993.