With Supreme Court giving green signal to the conduct of elections to gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh as scheduled by state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, the YSR Congress party government headed by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to go ahead with the polls.
State government advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy said the government would honour the Supreme Court judgement on the local body elections.
“All these days, we had been opposing the elections only keeping in view the public health, but not to gain an upper hand on anybody,” he said.
Stating that the government would not take it as a matter of prestige, Sajjala said elections would be held as per the schedule decided by the state election commission.
“Yet, it is going to be the YSR Congress party which is going to win majority of the local bodies,” he said.
He, however, alleged that there was a big conspiracy in announcing the schedule only for gram panchayats, while keeping the process of elections to mandal parishads and zilla parishads in abeyance.
Sajjala said the state government would discuss with the Central government on rescheduling of vaccination programme in the state.
“We brought it to the notice of the Supreme Court that there would be chaos if vaccination and local body elections are held simultaneously,” he said.
The YSRC leader accused Nimmagadda of deciding to conduct the elections despite the Coronavirus pandemic.
“If there is an increase in Coronavirus cases, Nimmagadda alone will be held responsible. Employees cannot take risks, as they are part of the government. For us, their lives are more important,” he said.
Sajjala said the chief secretary would hold a meeting with the employees’ representatives to work out the modalities.
“We are going to face the elections boldly,” he said.