Congress to move SC against EC over polls to 3 MLC seats

Hyderabad: The Congress has decided to challenge the decision of Election Commission of India (ECI) to hold elections to three MLC seats in the Legislative Council from the Local Authorities Constituencies.

The party decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court against the decision on Monday i.e., May 13. The decision in this regard was taken at the meeting of the leaders of the Pradesh Congress Committee on Saturday.

The meeting was attended by AICC general secretary and State party affairs incharge RC Khuntia, PCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy, working presidents Ponnam Prabhakar and Kusuma Kumar, former PCC presidents Ponnala Laxmaiah, V Hanumantha Rao, former MLC Shabbir Ali and DCC presidents.

The meeting opined that the Election Commission has taken the decision to hold the polls to the three MLC posts arbitrarily. The decision was taken to help the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

The leaders who participated in the meeting raised questions about elections being held without a voter list. The voter list of three Local Authority Constituencies was not issued so far.

The Congress leaders do not know the names of the voters to seek seconding the candidatures. There was no revision of the voter list and no one knew who was alive.

This would eventually help the TRS, the Congress leaders felt. At the same time the leaders of the political parties, other than TRS, did not know how many municipal councillors, MPTCs and ZPTCs they have since most of them have shifted loyalties.

The ruling party wants to hold the elections with the old list so that it could win easily.

The leaders also said that the Chief Electoral Officer has not responded to the pleas of the Pradesh Congress Committees to defer with the holding of the elections.

The time to file nominations would end on May 14 and if the Congress and other party leaders did not file the papers, the elections would become unanimous in favour of the TRS. The TRS candidates would file papers anyway.

The Congress leaders are of the view that the ruling party fears that if the elections are held with a revised list or with the new ZPTCs and MPTCs it would lose.

The trends in the ongoing ZPTC and MPTC elections suggest that the ruling party has been facing wrath of the rural voters. Though the Congress leaders have met the Chief Election Commissioner and submitted a memorandum to defer with the dates of the polls, even he did not take any decision.

Now the party has no option than approaching the Supreme Court. The leaders are hopeful that the SC would cancel the notification on the basis of absence of the voter lists.