SC rejects AP govt plea, SEC ready for showdown

The Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s attempt to stall the conduct of elections to local bodies by the Andhra Pradesh state election commission by moving the Supreme Court on Friday did not succeed, even as SEC Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar is gearing up for a final showdown.

The Supreme Court rejected on technical grounds the state government’s special leave petition challenging the order of the division bench of the state high court giving the nod to the SEC to go ahead with the elections.

The apex court said there were several mistakes in the SLP and hence, asked the government to file a fresh petition with the registry. Since it will take time to file the fresh petition, the government may have to wait till Monday.

But as per the SEC schedule, the election process will begin on Saturday with the commencement of nominations. In that case, the SLP will become infructuous, sources said.

Nimmagadda, who is hell bent on the conduct of the local body elections in the state at any cost before the completion of his tenure by March end, called for a press conference on Saturday morning for the issuance of notification.

Nimmagadda, who got the state high court judgement in his favour on Thursday, met Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan at Raj Bhavan on Friday afternoon and explained the developments in the last few weeks.

He reportedly asked the Governor to issue directions to the state government to cooperate with the SEC in smooth conduct of the elections to gram panchayats and assured that the election process would no away affect the ongoing vaccination programme.

Apparently, Nimmagadda wants to irritate the Jagan government further by ordering transfer of Guntur collector Samuel Anand Kumar, who allegedly favoured the YSR Congress party in grabbing majority of the MPTC and ZPTC seats in the district unanimously by threatening the other political party candidates.

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