Ultimately, win or lose, CM Jaganmohan Reddy seems to be having the last laugh. His Government is unwillingly conducting the panchayat elections following the victory of State Election Commissioner Ramesh Kumar in the Supreme Court. But, the CM and his Advisors are creating as many problems as possible for the SEC in a variety of ways.

Ramesh Kumar stressed the need for preventing unanimous elections everywhere in the State so as to ensure a level playing field for all contestants. He ordered for the services of an IG level officer to keep a close watch on the leaders who may use force or threats to cause forced unanimous elections. Obviously, the SEC issued this considering how the YCP used different methods to make sure many ZPTCs and MPTCs were unanimously elected.

Now, the Jagan regime came out with a unique counter to the SEC’s orders on unanimous elections. The Government has announced incentives for the panchayats where candidates win unanimously. A GO has already been issued. An incentive of Rs. 5 lakh would be given for a panchayat with a population of 2,000. The incentive would be Rs. 10 lakh for a panchayat having 2,000 to 5,000 population and Rs. 20 lakh for panchayats having above 10,000 population.

What more, CM’s Advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy has said that the SEC was wrong in giving a call for avoiding the unanimous elections.