In a major blow to the Jaganmohan Reddy regime, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh has given stay order on the latest election notification issued by the State Election Commission. SEC Nilam Sawhney issued the notification for the ZPTC and MPTC polls the same day she assumed charge as the new SEC. She gave this notification without completing the constitutional formality of holding the all political parties meeting.

The Opposition parties have approached the High Court seeking dismissal of the Nilam Sawhney poll notification. The HC found fault with the SEC not following the Supreme Court guidelines that four weeks gap should be there between the polling day and the election notification.

Besides issuing the stay order, the High Court has also asked SEC Nilam Sawhney to file her affidavit in the court before April 15. With this, it became clear that the SEC would be left with no choice but to postpone the parishad polls. The High Court has ordered Nilam Sawhney not to take any further steps to take forward the election process.

This is undoubtedly the first major shock to the Jagan Reddy regime since Justice A.K. Goswami took over as the Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh.