Telangana High Court can’t stay polls for Nizamabad farmers

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court rejected a plea filed by farmers who are in the fray for the April 11 elections from the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency seeking postponement of the polling date as they had not been allotted election symbols by the Election Commission, even as the campaign ends on Tuesday.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Rajasheker Reddy was dealing with a petition filed by 16 farmers.

The bench cited the Supreme Court judgement in the N.P. Ponnuswami case and said that that courts have no jurisdiction to intervene in the election process under Article 226, once it has commenced.

The bench told that the petitioners that they have the liberty to file election petition under Section 100(4) of the Representation of the People Act, to set aside the election result, only after completion of the election process.

While admitting the petition filed by the farmers under Rule 10 (4) and Rule 10 (6) of Conduct of Election Rules, the court directed the petitioners to implead the Centre as the respondent in the case and adjourned the case for two weeks.

Ms Rachana Reddy, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the EC was showing discrimination against the farmers and was violating the election rule which states that independent candidates should be allotted the election symbol after the scheduled day of withdrawal of nominations.

In this case, the withdrawal of nominations was on March 28, but the EC had not allotted symbols to the petitioners.

Pursuant to an earlier direction of the court to submit proof of their choice of election symbol in the nomination papers, an additional affidavit was filed along with a copy of the nomination papers of the some of the petitioners.

Ms Reddy said that the EC managed to arrange EVMs in two days but failed to allot symbols, which makes no sense. She submitted that the petitioners did not ask to cancel the elections, they were only requesting a postponement to avail the chance of canvassing with their symbol.

The court was not inclined to issue interim directions to postpone the elections.

Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading.