Andhra Pradesh state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who has been going aggressively against the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, received a tit-for-tat from the state cabinet ministers.
Two senior ministers – Panchayat Raj minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy and Municipal administration minister Botsa Satyanarayana submitted separate letters to state assembly speaker Tammineni Sitaram demanding that action be taken against Nimmagadda for the breach of privilege.
Peddireddy said the letter purported to have been written by Nimmagadda to Governor Biswa Bhushan Harichandan making certain allegations against him and Botsa Satyanarayana amounted to breach of privilege.
Several castigating remarks made by Nimmagadda were libellous in nature and far from truth and the tone and tenor of the letter was intimidating, he said.
“Nimmagadda alleged that we have crossed the Laxmann Rekha and violated the model code of conduct. Making such allegation without any substantial proof and casting aspersions against an MLA amounts to breach of privilege,” he said.
Stating that he has impeccable respect to all the constitutional bodies and especially to the Election Commission, Peddireddy said Nimmagadda had made several baseless allegations with an ulterior motive degrading him as an MLA and minister.
Botsa, too, wrote a similar letter to Tammineni, seeking action against Nimmagadda. Since the Speaker, too, made an attack on the SEC several times in the past, he is most likely to take up this privilege issue seriously.
