State Election Commission (SEC) and the police have become ‘puppets’ of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Party and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao during the entire GHMC poll campaign and are solely responsible for the low voting percentage, charged TS BJP president and Member of Parliament from Karimnagar Bandi Sanjay Kumar.
“The bogey of law and order issues was raised by KCR himself once he had realised that the BJP is gaining ground and he has succeeded in ensuring a historic low in voting. Yet, despite all these anti-democratic actions, we are going to win this election and the Mayor post,” he said, at a media interaction on Tuesday.
Under KCR’s ‘direction’ the ‘DGP and SEC’ have ‘murdered democracy’ and ‘action should be taken against them’ with Asaduddin Owaisi too was a part of this conspiracy. According to them — “it is democracy if they win and would be anarchy if we win to scare voters away,” he remarked.
“It was done as per a plan from deciding the polling date when there are continuous holidays, usage of ballot boxes rather than electronic voting machines, preventing government teachers from poll duty, putting inexperienced poll personnel in charge and to add to it we have an SEC not knowing the difference between CPI and CPI-M symbols,” charged the BJP leader.
TRS leaders, including ministers, were involved in distribution of money and liquor to influence the voters while the Majlis led booth capturing in the Old City, he alleged and accused the police of making “no effort to stop such illegal activities” and instead, the “police had filed cases against our partymen”.
Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy said the TRS government should be “ashamed” of the low poll percentage and is “squarely responsible” for it. “Polls held during the pandemic and in such a short time is one of the reasons as the ruling party was scared of being defeated after the Dubbak bypoll victory,” he claimed.
However, the party was “sad” about the majority of educated voters not exercising their franchise and it was a matter of reflection for all democratic forces. “The government machinery had played an active role in trying to help the ruling party candidates to win, but we are confident the people are with us,” he said.
Protest fast
Earlier in the day, national OBC president of the BJP K. Laxman, former MP Vivek Venkatswamy and vice president D.K. Aruna took up a day-long fast inside the party office in protest against the violence perpetrated by TRS-MIM activists across the twin cities, including trying to ‘attack’ party president Mr. Sanjay Kumar on Monday night.
SEC and police have been “mute spectators” to the illegal activities of the TRS-Majlis supporters in trying to “browbeat the Opposition especially BJP activists”. “Never before have we seen this kind of illegal activities from the voters lists preparation, delimitation of divisions, campaign and usage of ballot boxes, among others, with rampant misuse of official machinery,” they charged.
