Huzurabad bypoll: Election Commission puts Covid leash on parties

Hyderabad: Political parties in Telangana have been behaving as if the country is back to pre-covid situation. Though there are regulations that not more than 1,000 people should participate in public meetings, no party has been following the rule and all Covid safety norms have been thrown to the winds.

But now with the Election Commission making it clear that the poll observers would monitor the count of the people at gatherings. Only grounds where complete barricading was done would be permitted for meetings and that the expenditure for barricading and cordoning the ground should be borne by the candidate or the party. This has put roadblocks to the massive campaigns the parties had planned. The ECI had imposed these conditions to prevent any surge in Covid cases.

As per the election guidelines, the maximum number of people allowed at public meetings addressed by star campaigners should not be more than 1,000 and in case of others not more than 500 per meeting.

TRS had planned to hold a mammoth public meeting with one lakh people to be addressed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao during the third week of October in the Huzurabad constituency. The restrictions imposed have left the party leadership disappointed.

The only option left before the party is to seek special permission from the Election Commission to hold a public meeting. "Efforts are on to convince the commission to organise a mammoth meeting," a senior leader said.

The state BJP unit, which is confident of winning the by-election has already approached the Election Commission requesting to permit them to hold public meetings to be attended by several national BJP leaders and also the Union ministers during the campaign. The BJP proposes to invite BJP national president JP Nadda as chief guest at one of the public meetings.

As Telangana Congress announced party youth leader B Venkat Narsing Rao as its candidate, state party president A Revanth Reddy was holding special meetings with the leaders of old Karimnagar district to finalise the schedule of public meetings. Once dates are finalised, the party would approach the Election Commission and seek permission for public meetings. It wants to bring noted national level Dalit leaders in the party to attend the meetings.