The video of YSR Congress party MLA from Macherla Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy ransacking the electronic voting machine and the VVPAT machine at one of the polling stations in the constituency has pushed not only the Andhra Pradesh police machinery, but also the chief electoral officer, into an embarrassing situation.
The Election Commission of India took serious note of the video which went viral on social media and electronic media since Tuesday night.
It sought an explanation from CEO Mukesh Kumar Meena why he had not taken action into the incident.
Apparently, Meena was supposed to go through the video on the same say, as the polling process was being webcast at every polling station.
But he just ignored the involvement of the MLA and sent a report to the ECI that some miscreants damaged the EVM, but it was replaced immediately.
The ECI said the video footage of all such polling stations were provided to the police by the Election authorities of Palnadu district to assist them in investigation of the case.
Though the police were aware that the MLA had damaged the EVM, they did not include his name initially.
It was only after the video came to light, the police included the MLA’s name in the FIR as an accused during the investigation. Yet, the police did not arrest him immediately.
The ECI ordered that Pinnelli be taken into custody without delay. In all probability, he might be taken into custody by Wednesday evening.
The ECI has taken a very serious view and has directed the CEO to inform the DGP to take strict criminal action against all the persons involved in these incidents so that nobody in future dares to take any such action to interfere into the peaceful conduct of poll.
