Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar has constantly been at war with the government of Andhra Pradesh, ever since the YSRCP came to power.
Citing coronavirus, Nimmagadda had postponed the local body elections in the state, at the start of this year, following which the YSRCP government tried its level best to remove Nimmagadda from office.
However, Nimmagadda fought hard and made sure that no one replaces him, and that he stays on as the SEC of AP until his tenure comes to an end in March 2021.
For a few weeks now, Nimmagadda has been trying his best to conduct the local body elections, but the AP government is adamant about not conducting them anytime soon. Several sources revealed that the AP government is not in the mood to conduct these elections until Nimmagadda’s tenure is over.
The AP government has not been cooperating with the SEC in this regard and is citing Coronavirus as the reason why the government is not interested in conducting the elections right now.
This is despite the fact that Nimmagadda clearly stated that all sorts of precautions would be taken during the elections, with the virus in mind.
After a petition was filed in the High Court, by the SEC, about the non-cooperation of the government, the HC ordered the government to send three officials from the government to the SEC, and to discuss conducting the elections when the SEC deems it suitable.
The HC also said that the government has no say with respect to when the elections should be conducted, and that the SEC has the sole authority to do it. The HC also asked for a report containing the details of this discussion to be submitted as well.
Interestingly, the scare of a second wave, and the spreading of the mutated strain from UK has now increased in the country, with the Central Government releasing a new set of rules to make sure that the spreading of the second strain is as contained as possible.
This has now given an edge to the government, with the government now once again trying to use these as the reasons to not conduct the local body elections any time soon.
While Nimmagadda had earlier stated that the elections were being planned with all safety precautions in place, and with all conditions being considered, it is now to be seen if he has taken into consideration the second wave and the new strain in spreading.
There are chances that he can conduct the elections if he has taken these factors into consideration, otherwise, it might be a tough task for him to conduct the elections before his tenure ends in March.