In a major setback to Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s attempts to make use of volunteers to manipulate electioneering in favour of the ruling party, the Andhra Pradesh High Court asks to keep volunteers of gram/ward secretariats from all election-related duties.
The division bench of the High Court headed by Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur directed Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Kumar Meena to keep off the volunteers across the state from the electioneering or election duties.
Citizens for Democracy (CDF) secretary and former state election commission chief Dr Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar and joint secretary Vallamreddy Lakshmana Reddy said that the High Court responded to their petition given these orders.
They said that the CDF had already taken to the notice of the Election Commission of India that the volunteers of the gram/ward secretariats are being used for electioneering by the state government.
The Election Commission responded immediately and sent instructions to the Chief Electoral Officer of Andhra Pradesh on February 1. But the CEO sent the instructions to the district collectors after two weeks on February 14. They deplored the delay of action in such a sensitive issue during the election period.
Subsequently, they wondered that the Chief Minister and senior Cabinet ministers instructed the volunteers to work actively as election agents acting against the instructions of the ECI. They accused that the conduct of free and fair elections has become a huge challenge in this backdrop.
In this background, in the prevailing unfortunate circumstances, they said that the CFD filed WP 6419 /2024 in the AP High Court on 05-03-2024 in view of the indifferent attitude of the CEO. In Wednesday’s hearing, the High Court has issued instructions to ECI to take appropriate action as per CFD’s request.
They expressed hope that ECI and CEO Andhra Pradesh will respond and take measures to ensure free and fair elections, as per the orders of the High Court. If the ECI authorities fail to take appropriate action, they said that they will approach the higher courts again in this matter. CFD is fully committed to strictly implement ECI directives, they added.
Mostly `defected’ candidates dominates BJP’s Telangana list
In the two lists announced by the BJP high-command, as many as 15 candidates from Telangana were declared for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. Only Warangal and Khammam constituencies remained for which party candidates were declared.
However, among 15 candidates declared so far those defected from other parties, particularly from BRS dominates the list. While in the first list of 9 candidates two candidates were from BRS, of which one joined two days earlier and another one on the morning of the same day.
In the second list of 6 candidates, four joined from BRS just three days ago. They are Godem Nagesh for Adilabad, Sitharam Naik for Mahaboobabad and Sanampudi Saidireddy for Nalgonda. Peddapalli candidate G Srinivas also joined BJP very recently.
BJP general secretary and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar had reportedly objected to the admission of Saidi Reddy into the party as he had attacked BJP workers in Nalgonda district, when he was state party chief.
Local BJP workers also held protests opposing his entry into the party. Interestingly, the BJP has dropped its sitting MP from Adilabad Soyam Babu Rao, allegedly due to `objections’ raised by newly elected party MLAs from that Lok Sabha constituency.
In the first list also, BP Patel from Huzurabad and Bharat from Nagar Kurnool were given party seats immediately after their joining the party. A BJP insiders deplored that except G Kishan Reddy from Secunderabad and Bandi Sanjay Kumar from Karimnagar, no one really from BJP’s core ideology. They just joined the party having failed to find any suitable avenue in other parties.
Surprisingly, Hyderabad candidate Madhavi Latha is still not a member of the BJP formally. Etela Rajender (Malkajgiri), B Narasaiah Goud (Bhuvanagiri) and Konda Visveswara Reddy (Chevella) also joined BJP in recent years. Dharmapuri Aravind (Nizamabad) and DV Aruna (Mahabubnagar) joined the party before the 2019 polls. N Raghunandan Rao (Medak) also former leader of BRS and joined BJP prior to 2018 polls.
