Justice G. Sri Devi of Telangana High Court on Monday declined to pass any orders in two separate writ petitions seeking to stall ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) from holding a public meeting to be addressed on Wednesday by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao in connection with Nagarjunasagar byelection.
The judge instructed the HC Registry to post the two pleas before the appropriate bench. One of the petitions was filed by an independent candidate of the byelection Dhanawawth Kiran Kumar. He sought instructions to the government and the byelection authorities to strictly enforce the guidelines issued by Election Commission of India to be followed in conduct of elections or byelections during COVID-19 time. Compliance with the guidelines would help check the spread of coronavirus, he contended.
The judge sought to know from the petitioner’s counsel as to why names of the political parties violating the guidelines issued by the ECI were not mentioned in the writ petition. The political parties should have been made parties in the plea, she said describing the petition as vague and incomplete.
Advocate General B.S. Prasad, appearing for the State, told the bench that political parties were conducting public meetings as part of their campaign wherever elections were held in the country. Already, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party convened public meetings in Nagarjunasagar byelection, he said. Even national leaders were participating in such election meetings, he noted.
The second petition was moved by Goli Saidi Reddy and Goli Srinivas Reddy. They contended that the public meeting to be addressed by TRS supremo K. Chandrasekhar Rao was being convened in a land of theirs spread over 56 guntas. They sought directions to the authorities to stall the meeting. The judge said the file of the petition was not received by the bench and hence it could not be heard.
