ANDHRA GOVT MOVES HC OVER POLL BODY ORDER TO CONDUCT LOCAL ELECTIONS
Press Trust of India
AMARAVATI: The YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government on Saturday challenged the State Election Commissions decision to conduct elections to the gram panchayats and hurriedly moved a ‘House Motion petition’ in the High Court seeking that the poll process be stalled.
The government did not get any relief as the high court has not immediately taken up the petition and may consider it on Monday, officials familiar with the matter said.
State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar announced the schedule late on Friday, overruling the state’s objections, saying the polls to gram panchayats would be held in four phases in February.
The ruling YSR Congress alleged that the SEC is “dancing to the tunes of Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu.” YSRC MP V Vijaya Sai Reddy had said that the gram panchayat elections would be held only in May-june after completion of the impending bypolls to the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat.
Taking exception to this, the State Election Commissioner wrote a letter to the Chief Secretary Aditya Nath Das that such utterances would conclusively influence the government action (if not already done) vis-a-vis the local body elections. “It is also indicative that the party (and the government by default) is not in favour of holding elections during the tenure of the present Commissioner and shall hold elections only after my demitting the office (on March 31, 2021),” the letter read. The governments official line, however, has been that holding the elections would be difficult in view of the invocation of the National Disaster Management Act.