Experts rule out polls postponement

Hyderabad : Ironically, a section of Telangana Congress leaders also show the same threat of Mr Modi becoming Prime Minister while defending their argument for immediate polls. "The BJP will gain heavily in Assembly polls if they are held in a scenario wherein Mr Modi is Prime Minister," said the Congress leaders. Union minister S. Jaipal Reddy even got the Centre to make changes in the division Bill to defer delimitation post division and facilitate immediate polls.

Sources said when he observed that the Congress could not take chances with postponement, a member of the Group of Ministers on division said that the Telangana Congress leaders had promised the loyalty of the Telangana electorate to Congress for the next 20 years if it agreed for division. Seemandhra Congress leaders have apparently proposed an action plan to the Congress high command according to which the Centre would notify the appointed day, install two Chief Ministers and seek postponement of elections to the two Assemblies.

"It will help Congress to avoid a complete rout in Seemandhra and give some breathing space to us so that we can try to recoup," said a senior minister from Coastal districts. Significantly, Pradesh Co-ngress Committee chief Botsa Satyanarayana did not rule out the delaying of polls. "There are different views and one is delaying polls," he told.

Experts on the other ha-nd rule out any possibility of postponement. Normally, the Centre will write to the Election Commission seeking postponement of elections in extraordinary exigencies like law and order breakdown or natural calamities. "Either reason is missing in the present case. The only way the Centre could justify postponement is administrative difficulties during transition," a senior EC official said. According to former election observer K.J. Rao, the possibilities of postponing elections are very slim. "In the absence of any notification about the appointed day, the EC will assume the state to be unified and announce the schedule along with other states and Lok Sabha," he pointed out.