HYDERABAD: The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) expressed surprise that the Telangana State Election Commission (TSEC) has not shared any inputs about the pros and cons of both the options to conduct elections to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), namely EVMs and Ballots, about which it was sought to elicit the opinion of the political parties.
A representation was submitted to the TSEC Commissioner C Parthasarathi by TCC Chairman M Shashidhar Reddy and Convenor G Niranjan, here on Friday. Shashidhar Reddy said that it was needless to say that both the options have their own risks.
“However, when it has to deal with the health of the people, it would naturally be prudent to prefer the safer of the two options. At this juncture, we submit that unlike the political parties, barring the ruling party, the TSEC is empowered to seek the expert view, not only from within the State government but also of expert agencies such as ICMR and others,’’ Shashidhar Reddy said. TPCC urged the TSEC to provide necessary inputs and postpone the deadline for eliciting the views of the political parties to facilitate a well-considered opinion, in the interest of the well being of the voters.
The SEC could have also consulted the ECI which is presently geared up to conduct the Assembly elections in Bihar besides some other by-elections in different States. Shashidhar Reddy said TRS had decided to go for the option of ballot boxes for the GHMC polls without any reasoning and TRS being the ruling party, it was shocking. It appears that the decision to go for ballot paper has already been taken without any efforts of evaluating which of the two options would be better to safeguard people health against the spread of Covid-19, he said.