After claims and counter claims that a majority of the sarpanches declared elected unopposed belonged to them, political parties on Thursday got down to petitioning the State Election Commission complaining against each other.
Allegation
In a petition submitted to State Election Commissioner, P. Ramakanth Reddy, Telugu Desam MLC Y.V.B. Rajendra Prasad alleged that the post of sarpanch of Sirnepalli was decided on a lottery basis by the Major Irrigation Minister P. Sudarshan Reddy at his residence in Nizamabad district.
Mr. Prasad said the Minister called the four candidates- J. Chinnaiah, J. Sailu, J. Seenu and S. Ramesh- to his residence and selected Mr. Chinnaiah through lottery.
By doing this, the Minister has blatantly violated the model code of conduct, he said.
In a complaint against Minister K. Parthasarathi, the TDP charged him with conducting an official meeting at Katuru village in Krishna district and holding out threats that funds would be released for development activities only if they vote for Congress.
Meanwhile, parties continued to indulge in claiming high rate of success among those declared unopposed.
The Telugu Desam even released a list of such successful candidates backed by it- 599 and gave Congress 334 and YSRC 190.
