Interpreting the Supreme Court verdict on SEC’s postponement of civic body elections by six weeks in Andhra Pradesh, YSRC MLA from Sattenpalli Ambati Rambabu hailed the SC directive as a victory for the Constitution and democracy and a loss of face for the State Election Commission.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, he said the verdict was a slap on the face of SEC as the court had directed the election commission to consult the state government six weeks after. He also said that the court had pulled up the SEC that it had stretched its jurisdiction and questioned how the model code of conduct will continue if the elections were postponed. “It is a slap on SEC. The court had ordered the SEC to lift the code. The SEC was pulled up for trying to politicise the elections,” Ramababu said.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld the state election commission’s decision to postpone the civic body elections in the state. Hearing a petition filed by the Jagan government, the apex court observed that the SEC as a constitutional authority was well within its jurisdiction to defer polls and that its decision was supreme.
However, in a reprieve to the YSRCP government the Supreme Court gave a directive to the SEC to partially relax the model code of conduct as the elections were postponed and further observed that the state government can continue with its existing welfare schemes or projects with a rider that no freebies should be announced during the six weeks period. Further, it had directed the state government cannot announce new welfare schemes or projects during the six week period and consult the SEC to ensure there was no model code of conduct.
The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday filed a plea in the Supreme Court challenging the State Election Commission order postponing elections to rural and urban local bodies for six weeks while a private petition was also filed in the High Court on the same issue.
Elections to mandal parishad and zilla parishad territorial constituencies, the second and the third tier of the panchayat raj system, were originally scheduled to be conducted on March 21. Municipalities and municipal corporations were to go to polls on March 23 while gram panchayat elections were originally slated for March 27 and 29.
