Controversial Andhra Pradesh state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who virtually entered into a showdown with the Jagan Mohan Reddy government by unilaterally announcing the schedule for gram panchayat elections, got an unusual support from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
BJP state president Somu Veerraju said on Saturday welcomed the poll schedule and declared that his party was ready for the local body elections in the state.
“We conveyed our preparedness for the elections to the SEC,” he said.
At the same time, Veerraju demanded that the SEC conduct the elections to mandal parishad and zilla parishads as well, instead of just the gram panchayat elections through a fresh notification for the same.
“We told the SEC that in March last year, when the process for local body elections had begun, the ruling YSRC indulged in a lot of atrocities and captured 25 per cent of the MPTC and ZPTC seats unanimously by intimidating the opposition parties,” he pointed out.
He said the SEC should cancel the process held in March and issue a fresh notification for the MPTC and ZPTC elections.
“Right now, Nimmagadda issued notification only for gram panchayat elections and did not talk about the MPTC and ZPTC polls,” he said.
It means, the SEC is acknowledging the previous notification for mandal and zilla parishad polls.
“It has to be cancelled and the SEC should issue a fresh notification for the same,” the BJP state president said.