AP govt. starts exercise to appoint new SEC, sends three names to governor for approval!
Nilam Sawhney and Premachandra Reddy
The Andhra Pradesh state government is working on the appointment of a new State Election Commissioner. As part of this, news doing rounds over that the government has selected three names with former Chief Minister Nilam Sawhney, Premachandra Reddy, and Samuel. Of these, the name of Nilam Sawhney seems to be almost finalized. Nilam Sawhney who is a retired Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh and has been working as a chief advisor to Chief Minister YS Jagan since then. The government recently allocated her salary allowances as well as additional staff. The Governor appoints the SEC on the basis of seniority and competence. It also seems to take into account the interest of the government. The government will announce the new SEC by March 31.
On the other hand, the tenure of the current SEC Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar will end on the 31st of this month. In this context, the government has prepared the sector for the appointment of a new SEC. The SEC and the government have been at loggerheads since the postponement of local body elections last year. The state government brought in an ordinance reducing the SEC tenure. The SEC Nimmagadda, who challenged this in the Supreme Court, won the state government and returned to office.
Later, the government opposed giving notification for the panchayat elections while arguments were held in the High Court and the Supreme Court on this. The judgments were issued in favour of the conduct of the elections and the elections were completed. However, MPTC and ZPTC elections have not been held yet. Under the current circumstances, it is unlikely that these elections will be held during the Nimmagadda regime. With this, local body elections will be held under the auspices of the new SEC.
Meanwhile, as soon as the ordinance was brought to reduce Nimmagadda's tenure, the state government appointed Justice Kangaraj, a former Supreme Court judge, as the SEC. With the subsequent consequences Nimmagadda returned to office. It is noteworthy, however, that the new list was sent to the Governor without considering Justice Kanakraj. We will have to wait and see who the governor chooses from the list sent by the government. The state will have a new SEC from April 1 once the process is complete.