State Election Commissioner Ramesh Kumar has sent an e-mail to the AP Assembly saying that he won’t come under the purview of the House privileges. Hence, he does not need to reply to the privileges notice issued by Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy. However, if the Assembly Secretary insisted on his reply, Ramesh Kumar has offered to give his reply not immediately but at an appropriate time in future.

Ramesh Kumar further told the Assembly Secretary that he had high esteem for the House. At the same time, he said that he got Coronavirus vaccination and the doctors advised him not to take up any tours for a few days. This was why he had also cancelled his visit to Rameswaram on LTC.

Now, it became clear that Ramesh Kumar would not be available to go ahead with the MPTC, ZPTC elections. Interestingly, he used the same excuse that the Chief Minister has used to ensure early conduct of the parishad polls. CM Jagan has earlier asked the officials to hasten the parishad polls since the coming Covid restrictions and red zones would make it difficult for the voters to take part in the polling process.

Meanwhile, the YCP MLAs have reacted sharply threatening that the SEC would have to face action from the Assembly for his non-cooperation.

Sharply contesting the claims made by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner (SEC), Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar on Monday said the four-phase panchayat elections were held peacefully and expressed complete satisfaction over the polls.

“Police strictly participated in the election duty, including setting aside their Covid-19 vaccination, which did not lead to any untoward incident. The Election Commission expresses complete satisfaction,” Kumar added.

He also highlighted that the number of unanimous polls were also not abnormal.

“When we conducted the elections for 13,097 positions (panchayats), only 2,195 positions or 16 per cent of them had unanimous polls,” the SEC said.

However, contradicting Kumar, Chandrababu Naidu and TDP leaders have been making a barrage of allegations that the polls were not held in a free and fair manner.

According to Kumar, 10,890 ‘sarpanches’ have directly competed in the elections and won, including up to 50 per cent women and representatives from the weaker sections.

Kumar hoped that those winning the elections would provide good leadership.

He also heaped praise on employees of different government departments for their services in holding the polls peacefully across the state which continued for nearly a month.

“In every phase of the polls, nearly more than 90,000 government employees from all departments have participated. More than 50,000 policemen also participated in every phase of the elections,” said Kumar, who retired as an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer.

Indicating the high level of participation in the polls, Kumar added, more than 80 per cent voters exercised their franchise.

He appreciated the Director General of Police, Chief Secretary and the Health department for their cooperation and services.

The holding of rural local body (panchayat) elections had emerged as a major flashpoint between the SEC and the YSR Congress Party government, which have been at loggerheads for more than a year.

The panchayat elections were originally slated in 2018 when the tenure of the local bodies expired back then but Kumar chose not to hold them and waited until 2021.

However, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy proposed the idea of going to the polls in March 2020 but Kumar refused holding them citing the coronavirus pandemic, which had lead to a major row between the two.

Reddy accused Kumar of acting at the behest of opposition leader N. Chandrababu Naidu, during whose tenure he was appointed and even tried to replace him, which backfired as the SEC has constitutional protection equal to a Supreme Court judge.

With just one more month left as the SEC, Kumar has successfully conducted the polls which the state government could not stall with their deferment appeal being dismissed in the Supreme Court.

Being the head of a constitutional institution, State Election Commissioner N Ramesh Kumar is using all his constitutional powers to take on the ruling YCP leaders. Now, he is making a cinematic visit to the Punganur assembly constituency represented by Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy. Like a popular dialogue in one of those Balakrishna films, the SEC is going straight to the middle point of the YCP leaders’ home constituencies and making his point clear that he had got all the powers as the head of the Election Commission.

Peddireddy has become the present target of Ramesh Kumar. The Minister has caused a lot of embarrassment to the SEC by dragging him to the court. Peddireddy could get the court relief as it did not check the tapes of his comments against Ramesh Kumar. Now, the threat of the court taking a serious note of the tapes almost silenced Peddireddy. Amid this, Ramesh Kumar is now visiting the Minister’s home constituency.

Peddireddy, who usually won’t care about any ill effects of his statements, is now maintaining maximum restraint. He has not made any sensational statement against the SEC’s current visit to Punganur.

It may be recalled that in the past, Peddireddy passed aggressive comments against Ramesh Kumar’s visit to CM Jagan Reddy’s home district of Kadapa. Now, the Minister’s followers are greatly worried whether the SEC would announce repolling in the Punganur segment panchayats after completing his visit.

With each passing day in Andhra Pradesh, friction between the state government and the State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar is increasing, leading to a flurry of orders from the latter and a verbal backlash from the ministers and legislators.

On Sunday, the High Court dismissed Kumar’s order to the Director-General of Police Gautam Sawang directing him to confine the Panchayat Raj Minister Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy to his home until the end of the Panchayat elections.

However, Kumar went ahead giving orders that officials should not be transferred after the elections.

Following these developments, a host of leaders from the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) lashed out at Kumar.

“AP High Court gave rulings against two of your orders, please remember. At least now please do not cross the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ and behave according to the Constitution,” said senior YSRCP leader Ambati Rambabu.

“In case he does not do that”, Rambabu said, adding that the Constitution will not protect him.

Likewise, Sarvepalli MLA Kakani Govardhan Reddy alleged that Kumar was conducting in such a way that could benefit the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

“Because of his excessive interference we have accepted the complaints raised by Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy and Botsa Satyanarayana in the privilege committee for investigation,” said Reddy.

Meanwhile, inspector turned Parliamentarian, Gorantla Madhav, lashed out at Kumar, a retired Indian Administrative Service Officer (IAS).

Madhav castigated Kumar that he was behaving like actor Brahmanandam, who essayed the role of ‘Kill Bill Pandey’ in a Telugu movie to fulfill some fantasies.

Madhav warned that the government would act sternly against Kumar if he exceeded his brief and claimed that nobody could match Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Political circles are surprised at the way in which the Jagan Reddy Government hurriedly petitioned the High Court against the latest e-Watch app of the State Election Commission (SEC). When a deeper look is taken, then it has become clear how SEC Ramesh Kumar has greatly annoyed and embarrassed the ruling YCP Ministers and MLAs. Not just that, the latest app is also going to give a tough time to the police and all election officials with respect to election violations.

Two major irritants are found in this whole thing. The first one is regarding the secrecy of the complainant’s details. Anybody can file a complaint about a threat, kidnapping, etc without revealing their personal details. Usually, the Government departments would not accept such anonymous complaints. Being an autonomous institution, the SEC has preferred to maintain secrecy for encouraging the public to freely report any election malpractice.
The second issue is about the provisions in the app to keep a close watch on the action taken by the respondent officials who were on election duty. The SEC will directly monitor to check whether the police or the election officials concerned have responded to the complaint or not.

These checks and balances brought in by the SEC have undoubtedly embarrassed the YCP leaders, who are afraid that the official machinery may not cooperate fully like before because of the app.