The Telugu Desam Party has urged the Chief Electoral Officer to take stringent action against the numerous election code violations by the YSR Congress party in the ongoing campaign for by-election to the Nandyal Assembly constituency.
TDP MPs Konakalla Narayana and Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) complained to the election authority that YSRC president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was inciting voters with his comments against the AP Chief Minister and the party leaders were distributing money on large scale to voters. The YSRC candidates were caught red-handed while distributing money to voters in Nandyal on behalf of their nominee Silpa Mohan Reddy. YSRC MLA G. Srikanth Reddy, attacked the police station where they were lodged.
They requested the Chief Electoral Officer to initiate action based on the complaints with immediate effect so that election could be held in a free and fair manner. The TDP MPs submitted their memorandum to additional CEO Anup Singh. They complained about the Sakshi media house owned by Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy claiming that the vehicles and persons belonging to the media house were instrumental in transportation of money for distribution among voters. The media house was telecasting/publishing news in favour of the YSRCP candidate in violation of the election code. The election authority should consider these news items as paid news and include it in the candidate’s election expenses.
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The TDP MPs complained against the returning officer of the poll claiming that he had imposed unilateral ban on the conduct of surveys by students, NGOs, government employees and others. Conduct of surveys ahead of the elections was not banned according to the existing rules which imposed restrictions on publication/telecast of the survey results before the completion of polling. But the returning officer had imposed ban altogether on these surveys and representatives of students and NGOs were being detained if they tried to assess the public mood.
Mr. Narayana and Mr. Nani said the CEO’s office responded positively to the complaint submitted by them and assured immediate action. “We will approach the CEO again if action is not initiated on our complaints,” Mr. Nani said.