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Decks Cleared For ZPTC, MPTC Polls!

Decks Cleared For ZPTC, MPTC Polls!

In a big relief to the YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh, a division bench of the high court on Wednesday cleared the decks for the conduct of elections to zilla parishads and mandal parishads as scheduled earlier on Thursday.

The division bench, which accepted a review petition filed by the State Election Commissioner late on Tuesday night, heard the arguments of both the sides and dismissed the interim orders given by the single judge bench on Tuesday morning stalling the elections.

The division bench, however, ordered that the counting of votes should not be held on April 10 and results should not be declared. It referred the issue back to the single judge bench to settle the issue.

Arguing on behalf of the SEC, senior advocate C V Mohan Reddy said the petitioner – Varla Ramaiah had no locus standi to question the SEC as he was not a contestant in the elections. 

He also pointed out that the four-week time for implementation of model code of conduct was not made mandatory by the Supreme Court. It only gave a suggestion, while hearing the case in a particular context. If the code is implemented for four weeks, all the ongoing developmental works would come to a halt, he argued.

Senior advocate Vedula Venkataramana argued on behalf of Varla Ramaiah, while advocate general Sriram Subrahmanyam argued in favour of the government.

With the high court giving the clearance, the elections to the MPTCs and ZPTCs would be held as usual on Thursday. 

In all, there are 660 ZPTCs and 9,984 MPTCs in Andhra Pradesh, of which as many as 126 ZPTCs and 2,363 MPTCs were elected unanimously during the beginning of the election process in March 2020.

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Tags: Andhra Pradesh