Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) Botcha Satyanarayana has alleged that the State Election Commission (SEC) is working against the spirit of the Constitution. He wondered as to why the State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar is in a hurry to conduct the elections, when the public is still scared of COVID-19.
Addressing a media conference here on Sunday, Mr. Satyanarayana said that at a time when the Union government has announced the commencement of the vaccination programme from January 16, Mr. Ramesh was trying to conduct polls, putting the lives of common people at risk.
The Chief Secretary and senior officials have recently explained about the pandemic situation and clarified to the SEC that the State government was not in a position to conduct the elections. Ignoring the contention of the State, Mr. Ramesh Kumar has announced the schedule for conduct of gram panchayat polls, the Minister said. The Minister also said that many employees associations and even the public are opposing elections due to COVID-19, but Mr. Ramesh Kumar was not bothered.
The Minister said that when the cases were not even close to 30, SEC had postponed the polls without even consulting the government, but now when new cases were still emerging and there was a warning of a second wave, the SEC was trying to conduct elections.
‘Local body elections should have been conducted in the year 2018. At that time, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) was in power and Mr. Ramesh Kumar was the SEC. Why did he not conduct polls then?’ the Minister questioned
Mr. Satyanarayana dismissed the contention of the TDP that the YSR Congress Party government was afraid of facing the elections as baseless. He said that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has taken welfare to the next level by implementing 90% of the poll promises, and there was no need for the YSRCP to be afraid of facing the electorate.
