A civic poll organised by residents to gather opinion on the State government’s draft house tax policy was disrupted by police who forcibly seized the ‘ballot box’, here on Tuesday morning.
Kakinada Citizens Welfare Association (KCWA) led by Doosarlapudi Ramanaraju conducted the civic poll on Tuesday morning at the Zilla Parishad centre in the city, gathering feedback from citizens through a ‘ballot paper’ system.
Just a few minutes into the poll, police swung into action and seized the ballot box containing the papers. They also stopped the civic poll exercise, citing that the KCWA did not obtain permission to conduct the poll.
The One Town police told The Hindu that only the polling exercise was stopped and nobody was arrested for organising it.
In June, Mr. Ramanaraju was arrested by the local police for campaigning against the house tax policy after a written complaint was lodged against him by Kakinada Municipal Corporation Commissioner Swapnil Dinakar.
