The Jaganmohan Reddy Government is giving unchecked trouble to State Election Commissioner Ramesh Kumar even after the court order on the panchayat elections. As per the election code, the SEC orders would be final. This is as per the SEC being a constitutional institution vested with autonomous powers.

However, the Jagan regime has once again defied the SEC orders. This time, this is pertaining to the ‘censure orders’ that the SEC has given to Panchayat Raj Secretary Gopala Krishna Dwivedi and Commissioner Girija Shankar. The Government simply said that the SEC has no powers to issue such censure orders against the All India Officers. How can a penalty be imposed without the clarification of the officers?

The Jagan regime also told the SEC that its orders were in violation of the service rules relating to the IAS officers. But, the fact is that Ramesh Kumar was also a retired IAS officer. Being the head of a constitutional institution, he claims to have all powers to give such censure orders when there is an instance of election code violation.

Now, it is back to normal that the SEC is engaged in another fight by the Government. It seems the game will go on till the last day of Ramesh Kumar’s retirement in two months.