VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu met Election Commission officials in New Delhi on Friday and expressed his resentment over poll body’s decision to hold repolling in five booths in Chandragiri Assembly constituency in Chittoor district.
Accusing the EC of bias, he questioned its decision to conduct repolling on the basis of a complaint lodged by the YSR Congress 34 days after elections in the State.
Speaking to mediapersons after meeting EC officials, Naidu, who is spearheading an effort to stitch together an anti-BJP front, said any party opposed to the BJP, including the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was welcome to join the grand alliance.
Naidu made it clear that he did not have any problem working with his bete noire Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s TRS.
Responding to a query if a Congress-led grand alliance would join hands with the TRS, which is also trying to bring together all regional parties to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP front, Naidu said, “I am meeting everybody. Will chalk out a plan after discussing with all leaders.”
“The Election Commission’s decisions are very controversial, one-sided, pro-establishment and pro-government. During the entire elections, they were supporting the government. It is very unfortunate,” he told reporters.
“I am the party president for the last 25 years. I have never seen this type of Election Commission,” Naidu said.
We have evidence of irregularities: CEO
Defending Election Commission’s decision to hold repolling at five centres in Chandragiri, CEO Gopal Krishna Dwivedi has said after going through video recordings they came across irregularities on the polling day.
The transfer of the West Bengal home secretary for alleged interference in the election process was an “unnecessary interference” of the poll panel, he said. He also found fault with the poll panel’s decision to invoke Article 324 to curtail the campaign period in West Bengal and “giving time” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold two rallies was “unfortunate and not correct”, Naidu said.
The CM said the EC was reluctant to initiate action against Bhopal BJP candidate Sadhvi Pragya Thakur who insulted Mahatma Gandhi.
Commenting on the statements of CEO Gopal Krishna Dwivedi that the repolling decision was taken after examining the YSRC’s complaints, Naidu sought to know why he failed to go through the TDP’s complaints.
He said the CEO appeared to be unaware of the rules pertaining to repolling. The CEO should get reports from officials immediately after the polling day and decide whether to order repolling or not. But in case of Chandragiri, the repolling was ordered more than 30 days after elections, he alleged. During his meeting with the ECI officials, Naidu once again sought the counting of 50 per cent of VVPAT slips and also the IP addresses of those who filed form 7 for deletion of 9 lakh voters in the State.