EC dancing to the tunes of PMO, says KTR

Hyderabad: Finding fault with the Election Commission of India (ECI) for transferring the Munugode Returning Officer over deletion of a symbol, TRS working president KT Rama Rao wanted action to be taken against the Election Commissioner. In March 2011, the ECI through a notification had deleted the road roller symbol from the list of free […]

Hyderabad: Finding fault with the Election Commission of India (ECI) for transferring the Munugode Returning Officer over deletion of a symbol, TRS working president KT Rama Rao wanted action to be taken against the Election Commissioner.

In March 2011, the ECI through a notification had deleted the road roller symbol from the list of free symbols. However, the symbol featured in the list of free symbols again in the Munugode by-poll. During the 2019 parliamentary elections in Bhongir, TRS lost by a margin of about 5,000 votes with the candidate who had the road roller symbol walking off with 29,000 votes.

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“Despite deleting the symbol in 2011, how can the EC include the road roller symbol again and flout its own rules? Under whose influence is the EC working?” asked Rama Rao.

Accusing the ECI of working according to the Prime Minister’s Office, the TRS working president said interestingly, while the Himachal Pradesh elections notification was issued, the ECI held back the Gujarat elections notification for obvious reasons.

This was nothing but institutional abuse. The BJP government was misusing central probe agencies. Raids were being conducted on opposition leaders but there was not one case registered against BJP leaders, he said, pointing out that if a leader joined the BJP, all his cases would vanish. There would be no CBI or ED case.

“What happened to the cases against Sujana Chowdhary or CM Ramesh? This is the double engine governance promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Either jhumla (trick) or hamla (attack),” Rama Rao said.