Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar on Wednesday held one to one meetings with representatives of political parties about the conduct of the local body elections.
Various parties have sent their representatives and shared their opinions.
BJP representative Paka Venkata Satyanarayana said, "BJP requested to cancel the earlier election notification and the result of unmously declared candidates. He said that ruling YSRCP used muscle power and political power hampering democracy. The SEC should consider all situations and decide on new dates and issue a new notification."
CPM leader Y Venkateswara Rao said, "The local body elections to be held in March were postponed citing the reason of COVID 19. Now the election should be conducted without any controversies. Election dates should be fixed after considering various reasons like corona impact, heavy rains effect, start of agricultural works, and restart of educational institutes. Further, the election commission should coordinate with the state government and take appropriate decision."
CPI state secretary K Ramakrishna said, "The local body elections process was initiated in March, but postponed due to COVID. At that time the state ruling party had misused its power, threatened people and won 2129 MPTC and 125 ZPTC seats unmously. In some places polling officials and police colluded with ruling party that is against the spirit of democracy. A detailed enquiry should be held in that regard. All the unmous victories should be cancelled. Old notification should be cancelled and new notification should be issued and election process should be started from the beginning. In the wake of COVID, advise of medical experts be considered and accordingly appropriate decision should be taken."
Congress representative and party executive president Sheik Mastan Vali said, "elections should not be held until the corona pandemic is controlled. The elections which were unmously won, were won by brute force. So they should be cancelled, and proper enquiry should be done. As the state government initiated exercise for increasing the number of districts to 26; the local body elections should be conducted according to those new districts. Congress party is of the opinion that the old notification and unmous victories should be cancelled and local body elections should be conducted after formation of new districts and with a new notification."
TDP representative and party Andhra Pradesh wing president K Atchennaidu said, "the election notification was issued based on an ordinance. That ordinance is not enacted within 6 months. So the election process held till now should be cancelled. All unmous victories should be cancelled. There was much misuse of political power by ruling party. Police also supported YSRCP as it is in power. CBI enquiry should be taken up on all such irregularities. Ruling party has physically stopped people from filing nominations to get unmous victories. So the candidates should be given chance to file nominations online. In the wake of corona pandemic, number of polling booths should be increased and see that Covid regulations are strictly followed."
SEC Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar had postponed the election just few days before the day of polling in March, citing COVID as reason. Now he is collecting opinions of political parties.
BSP, BJP, CPI, CPI(M), INC, TDP, AIADMK, AIFB, IUML, JD(U), and SP have attended the meeting. JD(S) and Janasena have conveyed their views in writing. NCP, TRS, YSRCP, AIMIM, RLD, RSP neither attended the meeting nor conveyed their views in writing. Further, State Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney has met with the State Election Commissioner to express the government's view point.
The SEC informed that he had also discussed with HM&FW Principal Secretary l Kumar Singhal and Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar yesterday Monday.
( With inputs from ANI )
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