KARIMNAGAR: In a bid to avoid facing the music for mammoth election expenditure and other poll code violations, political parties and their candidates have begun organising public meetings at Penchikalpet village in Elkathurthy mandal, since it falls outside the Huzurabad Assembly constituency limits, but is located just about five km away from the segment.
A few days back, the TRS too had, under the aegis of Finance Minister T Harish Rao, organised a public meeting at Penchikalpet for those belonging to the Vaddera community. According to sources, the BJP is also making arrangements to organise a major public meeting, which will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, somewhere outside the Assembly constituency. It is learnt that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s campaign meet will also be organised outside Huzurabad limits.
Election special observer G Elamurugu, who has camped in Karimnagar, is monitoring the poll expenditure. In the meantime, Collector RV Karnan is focused on monitoring the poll preparations. Though the political parties are devising such strategies to avoid getting busted for poll code violations, the officials concerned said that the public meetings and other programmes organised outside Huzurabad will also be considered a part of the preparations for the byelection. “Otherwise you (the politicians) will have to avoid referring to Huzurabad and the impending bypoll completely,” the officials pointed out.
Karnan, on Thursday, stated that they won’t allow exit polls for the byelection. In a statement released to the media, the Collector stated that publishing exit polls of any kind is a violation of the MCC. He also requested the politicians to adhere to the Covid norms.