Andhra Pradesh not ready for polls: CS to SEC

Govt was not ready for the elections in the wake of the prevalent Covid situation which could not be compared with other states as already 6,890 people succumbed to the pandemic, says Chief Secretary

Visakhapatnam: The ongoing war between the Andhra Pradesh government and the State Election Commission reached a crescendo with refusing to yield their ground.

A day after State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar announced that the elections to the local bodies in the state would be held in February and wrote a letter to Chief Secretary of the government Neelam Sahni to the effect, the latter replied that the government was not ready for the elections in the wake of the prevalent COVID situation which could not be compared with other states as already 6,890 people succumbed to the pandemic so far. She also said that if the state went ahead with the conduct of elections, there was the danger of the disease spreading to rural pockets.

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Reacting to this, Ramesh Kumar sent an SMS to her saying that she did not have the right to question the authority of the SEC, which kept the political observers busy on the day.
Ramesh Kumar also met the Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan on the day at Raj Bhavan and spent 45 minutes with him, obviously to personally explain the developments, and later drove straight to his SEC office from there.

Addressing a media conference in Guntur on Wednesday, YSR Congress Party MLA Ambati Rambabu described the developments in the state as unfortunate and alleged that Ramesh Kumar was acting in an arbitrary manner, ignoring the Supreme Court direction which said that the SEC should conduct elections in consultation with the government. “In the past, he postponed elections suddenly, and now wants to conduct them–all without consulting the government.

The way he does it is very clear that the Telugu Desam Party is behind his actions,” he alleged, and clarified that it did not mean that YSRCP was shying away from the civic bodies’ polls.

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