HYDERABAD: Congress leader and Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy filed a PIL case in the Telangana High Court challenging the notification issued on December 23, 2019 by the State Election Commission (SEC) for conduct of elections to municipalities and municipal corporations in the State.
Seeking directions to the authorities to reschedule the elections, he said that notifying the schedule itself is contrary to the provisions of Telangana Municipalities Act, and if the SEC is allowed to conduct polls then the candidates in respect of reserved wards will be prevented from filing nominations. He pointed out that the SEC has issued the notification along with the schedule for conduct of polls to the ULBs from January 1 this year, without notifying the reservations to the STs, SCs, BCs and women in respect of 2,727 wards in 120 municipalities and 385 wards in five municipal corporations.
‘SEC issued notification for civic polls in a hurry’
Though the final notifications for a division of municipalities and municipal corporations into wards were published on Dec 17, the authorities concerned have deliberately failed to finalise and declare the reservations to the categories of ST, SC, BC and women. Without having such exercise on reservations, the State Election Commission (SEC) is making hectic efforts to conduct the polls in a hurried manner contrary to Section 6 and 7 of the Telangana Municipalities Act, 2019. Even if the reservations are declared on Jan 6 by the State government, there is no opportunity to the voters to challenge the reservations since the election notification is scheduled on Jan 7, he noted. He further submitted that the SEC had issued the notification in a hurried manner without publication of voters list.