Fearing SC contempt notice, Jagan govt removes party colours on govt buildings

Fearing contempt of court, the Jagan government has finally decided to remove party colours on panchayat offices and government buildings as the Supreme Court’s four-week deadline nears.

The Supreme Court on June 3 had ordered the Andhra Pradesh government to remove the YSRCP’s colours painted on the gram panchayat and government buildings across the state within four weeks. The Supreme Court had warned that if the Jagan government did not comply with its order, it would be treated as contempt of court.

At a high-level meeting on Saturday, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy gave instructions to the officials concerned to immediately remove the party colours as the four-week deadline nears. Further, the Chief Minister has instructed the officials to use only white colour on the government buildings and panchayat office. However, they were directed to carry the image of Jagan Mohan Reddy on all the government buildings and panchayat offices.

Earlier, the HC had directed the Andhra Pradesh government to remove the YSRCP colours from the gram panchayat buildings while responding to a public interest litigation petition. However, the state government circumvented the HC order by tweaking the color scheme by adding another colour, terracotta, thereby trying to hoodwink the judiciary.

The State government had issued a GO (623) to add one more colour (terracotta). Hearing a petition filed by advocate Somayajulu challenging the GO 623, the High Court had observed that the state government was trying to undermine the court’s directive by trying to circumvent its order by adding one more colour to the existing three colours. In the GO, the YSRCP ruling gave a new meaning to the colours.

The government argued that Green symbolizes green revolution (agriculture), Blue colour for blue revolution (water resources and aqua wealth), White for white revolution (milk and milk products). However, the High Court struck down the revised order and issued contempt notices on chief secretary Nilam Sawhney and Gopalakrishna Dwivedi. However, the Jagan government filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court that upheld the earlier HC order that the YSRCP colours be removed from the government and gram panchayat offices.