T-Congress senior leader and former minister Marri Sashidha Reddy, who waged a relentless battle against the deletion of names of ‘settlers’ from voter list , dubbed the shifting of commissioner Somesh Kumar from the GHMC , to tribal welfare department as the triumph of democracy . Sashidhar Reddy said the Election Commission team, which is looking into the deletion of lakhs of voters from the list, assured him that all the names would be restored. He said the fight against Somesh Kumar would not end with his transfer. ” We will continue our fight till Somesh Kumar is punished for his political work in GHMC. We won’t leave him,” he said after his meeting with the EC team led by West Bengal CEO. The team conducted inquiry into the massive deletion of names from Dr MCR HRD Institute, Hyderabad. The shifting of Somesh Kumar had proven our charge that names of voters from Andhra were deleted, Sashidhar Reddy said.
Sashidhar Reddy said Somesh was shunted out following the pressure from the political parties. ” I met the EC three times. I have shown every proof for the deletion of genuine voters. We requested the EC team to take action against the other senior level officers led Somesh Kumar involved in the fraud,” he said adding that some officials at higher level colluded with the TRS leadership to eliminate genuine voters on the pretext that they were not residing in the city.
Accusing chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of playing key role in the process, he said he ordered Somesh Kumar & Co. to delete about 25 lakh voters from the GHMC area.
According to Marri another 19 lakh voters have been served notices for deletion. The commission representatives assured them that they would look into the matter.
” How is it that a senior officer connives with politicians to do this type of work. We will continue our fight against Somesh Kumar till he is punished. The Congress won’t approve of any action against the employees at lower rungs. We will stand by them if the government attempt s to make them a scapegoat, instead of Somesh Kumar,” Marri assured the employees.
TDP leaders, who met commission also demanded that all the names deleted by the Somesh Kumar team be restored. TDP MLA Maganti Gopinath demanded that GHMC elections should held on the 2014 electoral list and full scale inquiry into the fraud be initiated before the conduct of GHMC elections.
