Hyderabad: TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Tuesday led a delegation of Congress MPs and MLAs and other leaders which met the Chief Election Commissioner and requested him to take steps to prevent the ruling TRS from indulging in corrupt practices in the Palair Assembly bypoll.
The delegation also asked the Election Commission to take charge of the entire election machinery, including the police, under its control besides seeking deployment of Central police forces to oversee the bypoll.
Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy told the CEC that the TRS is a “dictatorial party and is known to have misused official machinery in all the elections it contested after coming to power”. He said that as such it was for the Election Commission to take stock of the situation and prevent possible misuse of the official machinery by the ruling party.
The Congress team also sought cancellation of the permission granted to the TRS to conduct its plenary in Khammam on Wednesday. The leaders also sought introduction of the “Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trail” EVMs in all the polling stations in Palair to curb any potential tempering or manipulation of the voting pattern and the results by the TRS.
Seeking strict implementation of the Model Code by ordering that no statement is made or assurance given during the TRS plenary, the Congress leaders reminded the CEC that on earlier occasions, the Election Commission has issued warnings to both Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his son K.T. Rama Rao for violating the Model Code.
