VISAKHAPATNAM: Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development Botcha Satyanarayana here on Thursday said attempts are being made to disturb the law and order situation during the local body elections.
Addressing mediapersons, the minister took exception to the statements by opposition leaders for an ordinance to nominate local body heads. He said the State government was doing everything to conduct elections as per Election Commission (EC) guidelines.
More than 50,000 nominations were filed for 9,060 MPTC seats across the State. If the situation was not conducive, how can so many nominations be filed? he questioned. “That so many nominations have been filed indicates that the elections are being held in a peaceful manner,” he said.
He said the EC can be approached by the parties if they feel they were not allowed to submit nominations. He said the YSRC will respect the decision taken by the EC. The minister said Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy wanted to conduct the elections minus the ills of liquor and money. “Is it wrong,” he asked.
The TDP leaders, who visited Macherla on Wednesday, incurred the people’s wrath as their car hit a physically challenged person. Any leader is free to visit any place in the State.
However, the TDP leaders should have given the police prior information about their visit to the particular area. Botcha ridiculed the statements of BJP State president Kanna Lakshminarayana and Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan. He said, “Why the BJP-Jana Sena combine could not field candidates in all MPTC and ZPTC constituencies in the State is beyond me.” With regard to BC reservations, he blamed the TDP leaders who, he said, filed cases against the reservation in the court. He said the Chief Minister decided to give 10% more party tickets to BCs.