HYDERABAD: TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that several irregularities were cropping up in the conduct of municipal elections, including the release of schedule much before the announcement of the reservations and discrepancies in the electoral rolls. In a live interaction with party leaders on Facebook on Friday, he said that all the objections raised by the Congress regarding the polls were either ignored or overruled.
Claiming that a larger conspiracy was at play, he asked how the State Election Commission (SEC) could have issued the notification within an hour after the High Court had dismissed his petition on January 7. He said that the High Court’s verdict came at about 7 pm, and by 8 pm, the SEC issued notification and began the process of accepting nominations from 10 am the very next day.
Uttam said that candidates belonging to the SC, ST, BC and minority communities in nearly 3,000 wards were not given sufficient time to procure caste and other certificates to file their nomination papers. He said a candidate needed to submit about 12 certificates at the time of filing nomination.
The TPCC chief appealed to the minorities not to trust the ‘fake promises’ of the TRS leaders. He alleged that the TRS was having a secret pact with the BJP, and therefore, voting for the TRS was the same as voting for the BJP.