AP High Court suspends panchayat poll schedule

Nelapadu: To hold local body elections in Andhra Pradesh or not continues to be a seesaw battle between the State Election Commission and the State Government.

Justice M Ganga Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday suspended the gram panchayat election schedule issued by AP State Election Commission. The court observed that in the interest of public health, the impugned orders are suspended. In a quick reaction to the judgment delivered by Justice M Ganga Rao of AP High Court suspending the election schedule issued by the State Election Commission, AP Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar appealed to the Division Bench of the High Court late on Monday.

Aswin Kumar, counsel for the SEC, filed the petition. Appealing to the division bench to immediately hear the petition, the SEC stated that the judgment suspending the election schedule was against the Supreme Court guidelines delivered earlier. The argument of the SEC is that the process of vaccination would take a long time and for that the constitutional obligation of holding elections should not be stopped.

It may be noted that the SEC released the schedule for panchayat elections on January 8. Earlier, it held a meeting with the officials led by Chief Secretary Aditya Nath Das. This meeting was held following the directions of the High Court. During the meeting, the Chief Secretary expressed the inability of the state government in view of the Covid vaccination programme as all the frontline staff must undergo vaccination first.

The state government challenged the decision of the State Election Commission in the High Court on January 9 and the leaders of various state-level employees' associations also warned a boycott of the panchayat election in protest against the unilateral decision of the SEC.

The employees' association also filed an implead petition on this issue stating that participation of the employees poses a threat to their health amidst the pandemic situation and also they have to play a key role in Covid vaccination. Advocate-General S Sriram argued on behalf of the state government and Aswini Kumar on behalf of the State Election Commission.

The High Court observed that the SEC has not taken an objective decision in the subject matter. The court is of the view that the election programme would hamper the vaccination programme.