The Bharatiya Janata Party has sought the intervention of Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to order a high-level inquiry into the recently held urban local body (ULB) polls, to suspend Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament K. Keshava Rao and also take criminal action against election officer of Tukkuguda Municipality Rajeshwar Reddy.
A delegation of top BJP leaders led by party president K. Laxman met the Governor on Thursday at the Raj Bhavan and apprised her about the ‘blatant misuse of power’ right from the stage of issuing notification to the last phase of the election of the chairman, vice-chairman, mayor and deputy mayor posts.
“The scale and magnitude of misuse is unprecedented in history and TRS in its anxiety to grab as many municipalities as possible, irrespective of whether they have numbers or not, subverted all the procedures even while the State Election Commission (SEC) has remained a mute spectator to the entire process,” the party explained.
The Tukkuguda (Rangareddy district) episode is a good example of how low the ruling party has stooped to grab power, charged Mr. Laxman. The BJP won nine seats, TRS five seats and one independent won out of total 15 seats.
Mr. Keshava Rao, was elected to Rajya Sabha before formation of Telangana, and later he was declared elected from Andhra Pradesh in the draw of lots held on 30th May, 2014.
Objections ignored
Yet, Mr. Rao “illegally claimed” to be ex-officio member under Telangana Municipalities Act, 2019 and chose Tukkuguda Municipality to cast his vote on January 27. EO Rajeshwar Reddy did not heed to objections raised by the BJP, the police refused to take any action against the duo despite a complaint lodged and a representation made to the SEC to countermand the election to post of chairperson and vice-chairperson was ignored.
“This is a clear case of subversion of the Constitution,” the BJP leaders informed the Governor and said this episode illustrated the manner in which the local body polls were conducted in the State. They claimed that as per the Municipality Act, an ex-officio member for any municipality has to be identified within 30 days from the date of conduct of elections and this cannot be revoked.
Giving another example, the party said Education Minister and Maheshwaram MLA Sabitha Indra Reddy chose Badangpet Municipal Corporation as ex-officio member but later she shifted to Tukkuguda and the “illegal act was supported” by the municipal authorities concerned, the party added. Senior leaders N. Indrasena Reddy, N. Ramchander Rao, S. Malla Reddy and others were part of the delegation.
