The subservience of officials to the YSRCP government was evident during the gram panchayat and municipal elections, BJP State president Somu Veerraju said on Saturday.
“There is every possibility of manipulation of results during the counting of votes polled in the ULB elections on March 14,” Mr. Veerraju said while addressing State party office-bearers here.
The unanimous elections witnessed in many gram panchayats and some municipalities were giving rise to suspicion, he said, and cautioned the BJP and JSP cadres to be alert on Sunday to ensure that the results of municipal elections were not tampered with.
Referring to the attacks on Hindu temples, Mr. Veerraju said the BJP would soon take out a ‘rath yatra’ that had been foiled earlier this year.
BJP national secretary Y. Satya Kumar, State party affairs co-in-charge Sunil Deodhar, and former State president Kanna Lakshminarayana and others were present.
Later, addressing the media, MLC P.V.N. Madhav alleged that the ward and village volunteers had threatened the voters in the run-up to the panchayat and ULB elections.
“The government will try to employ a similar tactics during the elections to the MPTCs and ZPTCs, but the BJP and JSP cadres will thwart such designs,” he said.
As far as the Tirupati Lok Sabha by-election was concerned, Mr. Madhav said his party would highlight various projects and institutions given by the Centre to the temple town.
‘No retrenchment in VSP’
Reacting to the protests against privatisation of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Mr. Madhav said the Central government would proceed with it through a consensual approach.
“The VSP will neither be closed down nor its employees retrenched as is being widely campaigned,” he said.
“Why is the State government looking for private partners for the establishment of Kadapa steel plant if it is against privatisation?” Mr. Madhav questioned.
