Poll machinery in AP not allowed to functioning freely: Chandrababu to CEC

New Delhi: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu, on Monday, August 28, approached the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) over ‘large irregularities’ in the voter’s list and on the ‘blatant violation’ of the poll panel guidelines.

In an 11-page letter submitted to the CEC, Chandrababu brought to the notice of the poll panel that the ruling dispensation was mounting huge political pressure on the election machinery, which is not allowed to function independently.

Pointing out various violations in the summary revision of the electoral rolls, the TDP supremo made an appeal to the poll panel to initiate necessary steps to conduct free and fair elections scheduled for the Andhra Pradesh Assembly next year.

“The TDP has made several representations to the Election Commission (EC) with regard to the by-polls to the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat and various other issues including revision of electoral rolls,” Chandrababu said.

In the letter, Chandrababu further stated that the poll panel had delayed action on several other matters. “This delay was due to the extraordinary political pressure from the ruling party,” he said. “The administrative machinery has been silenced with registering cases, transfers, and filing Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) inquiries.”

He alleged that the local body elections held in 2020-21 were almost made unanimous using political and muscle power along with a brutal police force. “When some candidates ventured out to file their nominations they were either kidnapped or were forcibly shifted to unknown places from the premises of the respective returning officers. The officials were forced not to issue necessary certificates to the contesting candidates,” he alleged.

“The state election commissioner, an IAS officer of the rank of the special chief secretary, was hounded, humiliated, and publicly abused in filthy language with cabinet ministers taking the lead,” Chandarbabu stated in the letter. “This act of intimidation to such a senior officer pushed the whole official machinery into submission.”

He said, the State Crime Investigation Department (CID) had filed over 100 FIRs and subjected hundreds of political leaders to custodial torture, but did not file even a single chargesheet till now. “Even a Member of Parliament from the ruling party was not spared when he criticised the state government’s policies,” the former CM mentioned in the letter.

“The Superintendent of Police (SP) of Chittoor has foisted cases under Section 307 Indian Penal Code (IPC) against 450 persons, while the SP of Annamayya district registered an FIR invoking the same section 307 against the leader of the opposition who is dignitary and under the protection of the National Security Guard (NSG). The police is, thus, succumbing to pressure and is committing illegal activities,” he alleged.

Notably, a 10-member team comprising officials from the Election Commission of India, led by former deputy election commissioner Vinod Zutshi, had audited Andhra Pradesh voter list before the last Assemble eclections, following allegations by the YSRCP that about 59 lakh entries in the voters list were duplicate.

The allegation was significant as there are about 3.67 crore eligible voters in the state, which meant that the alleged ‘fake voters’ constituted about 16 per cent of the total electorate.