Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) today made last ditch attempt to stall the TRS plenary scheduled on Wednesday at Khammam. The party urged the election commission to withdraw the permission granted to TRS to conduct its plenary in view of the Palair byelection.
A delegation, led by PCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, called on Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi in New Delhi on Tuesday to urge the commission to use ballot papers or Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) along with the EVMs in Palair byelection scheduled on May 16.
About the plenary the Congress told the CEC that cancelling of the plenary was necessary to provide level playing field for all the political parties in the fry. The TRS is organizing its plenary on April and a public meeting at Khammam in the evening.
The Congress submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission to this effect. Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged the conduct of the plenary at Khammam was deliberate. “The TRS despite knowing well about the forthcoming elections, has deliberately planned plenary session with a malicious intent to influence the voters with their massive dumping of publicity material, hoardings, billboards, cut outs of leaders, flags and buntings. TRS is attempting to spend crores of rupees and planning to mobilize lakhs of people for their public meeting,” he said. The TPCC chief strongly objected to the grant of permission for TRS Plenary and public meeting in Khammam.
Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that the elections in Telangana had become a farce. “TRS is found to be indiscriminately distributing liquor and various forms of gifts. It has also had resorted to threatening the voters and to mass rigging of votes. The police in Telangana have become puppets in the hands of TRS government and the irony was that the police allowed the government to use their official vehicles to transport and distribute the money during the by-elections,” he said in the memorandum.
Uttam feared that the situation would deteriorate further if EC fails to take proactive measures and demanded that Central forces be deployed for the smooth conduct of elections.
