Within a day of the state high court refusing to grant stay on the process of elections to local bodies in Andhra Pradesh, state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar began mounting pressure on the state government.
Nimmagadda on Friday wrote yet another letter to chief secretary Neelam Sawhney asking her to begin arrangements for the conduct of local body elections in February.
Stating that the SEC was the only competent authority to decide the schedule, he warned that if the elections were not held on time, the local bodies won’t get funds from the Centre.
He attached the directions of the state high court to his letter to the CS. He asked her to take up the revision of the electoral rolls and complete it by January 2021, so that elections could be held in February.
Nimmagadda also indicated that he would hold a video conference with all the officials of the districts soon to discuss the election preparedness.
Though he wanted to hold the video conference last month itself, it got postponed twice due to resistance from the state government.
But since the high court gave the orders in his favour, Nimmagadda revived the proposal to hold the video conference.
It remains to be seen how the chief secretary would react to the latest letter from SEC.
