The Andhra Pradesh high court on Friday clipped the wings of State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who had issued orders to keep all MPTC and ZPTC unanimous elections in abeyance.
While deciding to resume the MPTC and ZPTC elections, Nimmagadda had decided to probe into the allegations on violence and forced unanimous elections to these local bodies.
Though Nimmagadda had stated in March 2020 while postoponing these elections that the process completed till that day would hold good and the process would resume later.
However, after a year-long battle with the state government, Nimmagadda had decided to restore the elections on the request of the state government.
But, he had decided to keep all the unanimous elections in abeyance and asked the parties and candidates to raise objections, if they have any, with the district collectors.
Nimmagadda had also directed the collectors to take representations from the candidates and inquiry into them.
However, with the state government approaching the court, the court had directed the SEC to restrain from stopping the unanimous elections where declaration forms were already issued.
The court, however, authorised the SEC to have inquiry, if required, in other cases where election declaration forms (form 10) were not issued.
Interestingly, things seem to have changed in the courts, where every petition against the government was entertained and the state government was faulted in the past.
