EC team sets the ball rolling for early polls
The Central EC team headed by Deputy Election Com-missioner Umesh Sinha arrived in Hyderabad on Tuesday evening and met all the parties.
Hyderabad: The Central Election Commission has started the process for the Telangana Assembly polls by meeting all political parties in the state on Tues-day. The Central Election Commission team headed by Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha arrived in Hyderabad on Tuesday evening and met all the parties.
The political parties have complained regarding voters lists. They have requested the Commission to extend the time to file objections on voters lists. They also complained about the removal of lakhs of voters from the voters lists. They raised doubts about the announcement of the election schedule by Chief Mini-ster K Chandrasekhar Rao. TRS has requested the Election Commission to conduct the polls at the earliest whereas the Congress has asked the election watchdog to postpone the elections if necessary.
BJP leader N Indrasena Reddy told the election commission officials in Hyderabad that people would be busy from September 13 due to the Ganesh festival and on September 24 for Ganesh immersion and also on September 21 for Mahakam. So the time was not sufficient to file objections. He said except three districts, draft voters lists had not been supplied to political parties.
Indrasena Reddy said that they had told the election commission officials that local officials were misleading them. Congress leader Marri Sashidhar Reddy questioned the election commission officials on how they would complete the election process within two weeks which actually needs four weeks time. He also requested to extend the time to file objections on voters lists as a series of festivals were approa-ching. He urged the officials if necessary to extend the time to conduct the elections. The Congress leader asked how CM KCR announced the election schedule so quickly.
TD leader Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy said that lakhs of voters were missed in the draft voters list. CPI leader Chada Venkata Reddy said that they had complained about 30 lakh voters in the draft list. He said that they had asked for the postponement of the final publication of the voters list.