Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday urged Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, to seek an explanation from Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, on the “misuse” of State machinery in Dubbak, instruct Director General of Police (DGP) to immediately transfer all police officials of Siddipet involved in “high-handedness” against the BJP workers, leaders and family members of party candidate M. Raghunandan Rao and transfer the Siddipet Police Commissioner for “abusing” party chief and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar.
In a memorandum to the Governor, a copy of which was released to the media, the BJP leaders — city president and MLC N. Ramchander Rao, general secretary G. Premananda Reddy — also requested her to “appoint a team of observers to Dubbak to take stock of the situation and submit the report” and “advise the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana to take due cognisance of the incidents at Siddipet and Dubbak and initiate appropriate action to ensure fair polls”.
Drawing her attention to the “gross misuse of power and brazen attempts to muzzle the opposition space” in the ongoing campaign for the Dubbka Assembly segment bye-elections, the leaders charged that the local officials instead of providing a level-playing have adopted an extremely “lopsided” stance to benefit the ruling party. The officials have been behaving as TRS agents right from the beginning of the campaign with police not allowing BJP leaders to canvas in the constituency.
The police have been rounding up youth and confining them to the police station for hours to “psychologically browbeat and emotionally blackmail the families”. Raids are being conducted across the homes of various party leaders and functionaries without any due standard operating procedures being followed “just to please the political bosses”. Mr. Sanjay Kumar was halted outside Siddipet and forcibly bundled into a vehicle unceremoniously.
“TRS has been taking recourse to these intimidation-tactics as the defeat stares at them in Dubbak. It is sheer frustration at its worst. It is now evident that a fair bye-election would not be possible in Dubbak. The TRS government wouldn’t allow it under the circumstances, we seek your intervention as you are the constitutional head to safeguard the democracy in the State,” they appealed in the memorandum.
Earlier, the party delegation complained to the Election Commission that the ‘anganwadis workers’ who were designated as booth level officers instead of confining to the election work have been warning the people of not getting pensions if they do not vote for the ruling party Hence, it was necessary to remove them from the posts and appoint others. Political parties functionaries should be allowed to monitor the distribution of the forms, they added
