Congress casts doubts on CEO’s neutrality

 ​Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy has raised serious doubts over the impartiality and neutrality of Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar and alleged that the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was not being implemented in the State in true spirit.

Addressing the press conference after holding an emergency meeting with the AICC and TPCC office bearers, MPs, ex-MLAs, MLCs, DCC presidents and State heads of frontal organisations at Gandhi Bhavan here on Monday, Uttam said that the CEO did not take any action against the violation of model code of conduct across the Telangana State.He pointed out that the government advertisements with pictures of caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and other ministers were not removed from RTC buses. 

Similarly, big hoardings of government schemes with Chief Minister and Ministers' pictures still existed at several prime locations in Hyderabad. He informed that TPCC Working President Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka gave a representation to Chief Secretary SK Joshi in this regard, and the  party would also  give a representation to Election Commission of India on non-implementation of MCC besides approaching the Supreme Court if needed. 

Uttam said the election authorities also made no efforts to allay fears related to effective functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The demonstration on EVMs was being given only in some district headquarters. He demanded that the EVM demonstration should be arranged in all Assembly constituencies by inviting representatives of all political parties. There were lot of suspicions that K Chandrashekar Rao and his son K T Rama Rao might resort to tampering of EVMs to win next elections. 

The Congress leader alleged that several newspapers and news channels were giving biased coverage in favour of ruling party, while defaming leaders of other parties. He said entire news bulletin of some news channels have turned into propaganda tool for the ruling party. 

The owners of some media organisations have close relationship with the ruling party, and in some cases, the TRS leaders were the major shareholders secretly. He demanded the Election Commission to keep an eye on the extensive coverage being given by media to ruling and treat it as paid news.  Uttam appealed to the people to be cautious with KCR and other leaders of TRS who are trying to influence voters with their ill-gotten wealth. 

“KCR looted the people's wealth in name of irrigation and other projects, and is now trying to use the same to win next elections,” Uttam alleged, while adding that crores of rupees have been sent to TRS candidates to buy leaders of other parties in their constituencies and also to distribute it among voters. He also appealed to the media to expose this in a serious manner.