Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has charged the State Election Commissioner (SEC) with endangering the lives of lakhs of voters in the two municipal corporations and five municipalities by blindly going ahead with the polls ignoring the dangerous situation due to COVID-19.
In a letter to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, he sought her intervention in stopping the election process at the present point. “Since the Governor is the appointing authority of the State Election Commission (SEC) as per Article 243 in the Constitution of India, she should notice the unbecoming conduct and the highly biased manner in which the SEC of Telangana in conducting the elections,” he said.
He said the notification and reservations were hurriedly announced on April 15 and nominations were commenced the next day despite the huge second wave of the COVID-19. “Right from the hasty preparation of electoral rolls to hurried allocation of reservations the present SEC has plunged to new lows in the conduct of free and fair elections,” he alleged.
He said the present SEC has discontinued the practice of holding all party meetings before any local body elections. He also does not want to meet delegations of Opposition parties who wish to represent on election related issues.
In a statement later, the TPCC president said that the Governor called him and enquired about the situation and the issues related to elections under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
