AP Municipal Elections 2021: High Court to give verdict today on SEC orders over village volunteers

The Andhra Pradesh High Court will today give its verdict on the ban on volunteers in municipal elections. Arguments were ended on Tuesday in a petition filed by the state government challenging Election Commission orders to take action against ward volunteers directly or indirectly involved in municipal elections. Former MLA Jesse Prabhakar Reddy has said that the Election Commission should be directed to keep the volunteers away from the municipal elections. After hearing the arguments, the High Court decided to give orders on Wednesday in all the three cases.

In the arguments, public prosecutor Chintala Suman on behalf of state government said that there was no truth in the allegations that the volunteers were distributing voter slips. Block-level officials were being distributed voter slips and volunteers had nothing to do with the election. The court noted that the volunteers will not have everyone's information except the details of the beneficiaries of the various schemes under their purview.

He said that mobile phones are very important for volunteers and they contain the information of the beneficiaries. He said they could not implement welfare schemes without mobile phones. He explained that the pension money is given directly to the beneficiaries by the volunteers and the cash is credited to the beneficiaries' accounts in respect of the remaining schemes. He said the Election Commission did not have the power to freeze the volunteer system. N. Rangareddy, counsel for the Municipal Corporations, while making the arguments, said that the case filed by JC Prabhakar Reddy in the wake of the Election Commission ordering the volunteers to stay away from the elections would be null and void.