AP State Election Commissioner N Ramesh Kumar has rejected the Jagan Reddy Government’s plea for postponing the panchayat poll notification till after the Supreme Court order on Monday. He asserted that he would abide by any order that would be issued by the Supreme Court in this regard. As per the schedule, Nimmagadda announced the poll notification for the first phase today.

Unlike his usual self, the SEC held an elaborate press conference on the circumstances that led to the Government not giving expected cooperation despite the High Court orders. The Government told the court that 2021 electoral rolls would be prepared to conduct the panchayat polls based on that. But, this roll could not be prepared. To discuss this, the SEC had asked the Panchayat Raj Secretary and Commissioner for a meeting but they did not attend. So, the decision was taken to conduct the polls based on the 2019 voter lists.

Mr. Ramesh Kumar passed indirect remarks at the adamant attitude of Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy. He said that either those in the SEC or in the Government were just servants to the public. It is the people who are the real rulers in a democracy. It is not correct to say that the elections should not be held on some pretext or the other. The local bodies need to be strengthened with new leadership. Only the elections would help create and develop that leadership. The people are very enthusiastic about the polls and everybody should respect their sentiments.

The SEC said that he had firm hopes on cooperation from the AP Chief Secretary and the DGP. But the problem is that the Panchayat Raj Secretary and Commissioner were not giving the expected cooperation. This was despite the court’s orders. The same would be communicated to the Governor for taking further action.