Visakhapatnam, Feb 10 (IANS): As many as 61 villages in Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam district went for unanimous sarpanch elections in the first phase of the four-phase panchayat elections.

"In Narsipatnam, 21 panchayats went for unanimous polls and about 40 in Anakapalle so far. We are yet to receive information from Paderu. That makes it 61," Visakhapatnam district collector V. Vinay Chand told IANS.

One of the major driving forces for many villages to go for unanimous polls was the financial incentives declared by the state government, which stretch up to Rs 20 lakh depending on the population of a village.

"I think after the conclusion of the poll process," said Chand when quizzed as to when these villages could encash their incentives.

According to the IAS officer, the trend of unanimous polls was almost similar in the last panchayat elections in 2013 in the north Andhra district.

Similarly, unanimous polls resulted in the conduct of peaceful elections in the district, meeting the expectations of the Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government.

"Yeah, we haven't received any complaints anywhere about the unanimous thing (polls). They have been peaceful," confirmed the collector.

Andhra Pradesh successfully completed the first phase of four phase panchayat elections on Tuesday, in which nearly 3,244 villages went to the rural local bodies polls.