Andhra Pradesh state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who has been in a virtual war with YSRC party president and CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy over the conduct of local body elections in the state, has also started playing a political mind game.
Nimmagadda chose to tour Kadapa district and other parts of Rayalaseema obviously to counter the domination of YSR Congress party in the region, so that it would benefit the opposition parties, at least partially.
During his meeting with officials, he has been warning against the declaration of gram panchayat elections unanimous under pressure.
He cautioned them that he had appointed shadow teams to ensure that there are no forcible unanimous elections anywhere.
In this connection, Nimmagadda also sought to play a political card by invoking the name of Jagan’s father and former chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, at the official meetings on Saturday.
He showered praises on YSR stating that he had reached this position only because of YSR’s encouragement.
“Late YSR used to give a lot of freedom to the officials to speak the truth without fear or favour,” he said.
Stating that YSR had a lot of respect towards constitutional bodies like election commission, Nimmagadda also described the late chief minister as a true secular despite having his own personal faith.
By praising YSR, the SEC was obviously trying to draw a comparison between Jagan and his father. He wanted to point out that unlike YSR, Jagan was not giving any freedom to the officials but was bulldozing his decisions.
By describing YSR as secular, it was evident that Nimmagadda was taking an indirect dig at Jagan!