VIJAYAWADA: In an open letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI), TDP State president K Kala Venkata Rao has expressed his anguish over the ECI, an autonomous institution, allegedly helping a single political party.
The TDP leader, in his four-page letter, described the 2019 general elections as the darkest period in the annals of the ECI and said it resembled Emergency in the country in the 70s. He accused it of working under Narendra Modi instead of being an autonomous institution.
Rao posed twenty-two questions criticising the functioning of the ECI. He asked as to why it has failed to respond to the letters written by political parties including the TDP and former bureaucrats. “In which way hindering the day-to -day administration in the State in the name of model code of conduct is acceptable? When the code is in force, only the officials on election duty are answerable to the EC and the remaining have to answer the Chief Minister,” he said.
He asked in which way counting VVPATS in five polling booths can verify the genuineness of the voting and what is the use of VVPAT system if the counting of VVPAT slips is confined to just five polling booths. He also questioned why KCR and Narendra Modi are allowed to hold review meetings and why Chandrababu Naidu is not.
He demanded to know whether Prime Minister Modi using PMO and NITI Aayog staff for poll canvassing is a violation of MCC or not. He asked the ECI to at least conduct the counting in a transparent and proper manner.