VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday stayed the elections to the Eluru Municipal Corporation scheduled to be held on March 10. While staying the elections to the corporation, Justice DVSS Somayajulu found fault with the authorities for not preparing the voters’ list as per rules and directed the officials to rectify the mistakes in the list.When the State Election Commission (SEC) issued a notification for elections to urban local bodies in 2020, TDP leader SV Chiranjeevi approached the court stating that there were several errors in the voters’ list and sought court’s intervention to rectify the mistakes.
Hearing the petition on March 5, 2020, Justice M Satyanarayana Murthy asked the officials to rectify the mistakes. The court took serious exception to printing a photo of a dog in place of a voter in the list.
Chiranjeevi and 34 other petitioners once again approached the court informing that the election to the corporations is being held without following the directions of the court.
Justice Somayajulu heard the petitions on Monday and issued interim orders staying the elections to the Eluru Municipal Corporation. Justice Somayajulu said the officials did not make public the draft voters’ list seeking objections from the people before publishing it, leading to mistakes in the voters’ list. Justice Somayajulu said ‘OOO’ was printed as the house address of hundreds of voters and the officials have failed to properly implement the earlier High Court directions.Justice Somayajulu said officials should implement the court orders and that it is not right to hold the elections without implementing the orders. Justice Somayajulu said the mistakes would have been eradicated if the officials followed rules while publishing the final voters’ list.