VIJAYAWADA : Observing that continuance of Chief Secretary KS Jawahar Reddy at the helm will be detrimental for free and fair counting process on June 4, TDP senior leader and former MP Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar requested the intervention of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commission of India (ECI) to arrange for monitoring of the counting process through central observers without any role to State authorities under the protection of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) at every counting centre.
In a letter addressed to the CEC on Wednesday, the TDP leader also requested to direct the Chief Secretary to abide by ECI decisions and arrange for severe criminal action against Macherla MLA Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy for all his misdeeds over time including that of poll related violence.
He further stated that the whole nation was shocked by the video in which Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy was seen destroying the EVM machine on May 13 and warning the TDP polling agent and women who protested against this dastardly act. Additionally, the MLA’s henchmen attacked TDP polling agent Namburi Seshagiri Rao for obstructing, he added.
“However, till May 22, when the media got the clipping from election authorities, no action was initiated against this incident. The AP Chief Electoral Officer shrugged off stating that a complaint was filed on May 14 itself with police and in turn police stating that election officers have not given a webcast dump to examine the incident. One week lapsed after committing this unlawful act and nobody could dare to take action even today,” he mentioned in the letter.
Kanakamedala further informed that Pinnelli, who was under house arrest, was ‘allowed and escorted’ out of the constituency and he reached Hyderabad on May 16 itself and thereafter started giving interviews to media. The police could not dare to reach him despite so many complaints pending against him, he added.
Meanwhile, a delegation of TDP leaders called on Director General of Police Harish Kumar Gupta and urged him to take stringent action against Pinnelli for destroying EVMs and resorting to violence. They urged the DGP to take action against Tadipatri DSP Chaitanya for the violence in the region.
‘Police foisting false cases against TDP’
On the other hand, TDP leaders Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and KR Deepak Reddy complained to the Chief Electoral Officer accusing the police of foisting false cases against TDP cadres in Tadipatri Assembly constituency.