Hyderabad: TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Thursday demanded that the Election Commission cancel the notification issued for the election of three Legislative Council members from the local bodies quota, as it was issued without the voters list.
Writing to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora with the demand, Mr Reddy wanted it to be treated as urgent and action taken immediately.
Mr Reddy said that as per the schedule released on May 6, the Election Commission allowed candidates to file their nomination papers from May 7. Even on May 9, neither the Election Commission nor the Chief Electoral Officer had published the voters list.
The TPCC chief said that in order to file the papers, every candidate must be proposed by at least 10 electors. “How it is possible in the absence of a published voters list,” Mr Reddy asked.
He said that the candidates had lost two days to file their nominations, and it was uncertain when the voters list would be published. He said that when the new electors (zilla and mandal parishad territorial committee members) come into existence on May 27, when their votes are counted, it is illegal to conduct elections on May 31 to the Council with the list of old ZPTC and MPTC members.
Mr Reddy said that as per the law, there was a need to complete the election to the three seats within six months from the time they were declared vacant. Why did the Election Commission not conduct these elections along with the polls from the graduates and teachers constituencies in March, he asked.
The TPCC chief said in the letter that the three Council seats from the local bodies quota were vacant from December last, when the MLCs were disqualified.
“There is some conspiracy as to why the schedule was given on the night of May 6 and notification was issued on the morning of May 7 without prior public display of voters list,” Mr Reddy said.
In order to protect the spirit of democracy and do justice, Mr Reddy requested Mr Arora to cancel the notification and reschedule the election.
