It looks like a Constitutional crisis of sorts is brewing in Andhra Pradesh with all the state government employees expressing their reluctance to participate in the process of conducting gram panchayat elections, notification for which will be issued by the state election commission on Saturday.
Representatives of several employees’ unions on Friday met chief secretary Adityanath Das and submitted a nine-page memorandum, stating that they would not be able to participate in the gram panchayat elections till the vaccination programme was completed.
Those who submitted the representation to the CS were from revenue, police, panchayat raj and teachers’ unions.
“It will take another two months to complete the vaccination programme and therefore, the panchayat raj elections should be postponed till then,” they said.
They represented that they had been attending to their duties despite pandemic situation and hundreds of employees had died in the last few months due to Corona.
“We can’t take any risk due to gram panchayat elections,” they said.
Employees JAC leader Boppa Raju found fault with the SEC for deciding to hold elections during the vaccination period.
“Nimmagadda is behaving harshly with the employees. How can vaccination and elections be held simultaneously? We can’t take part in the election process, unless all the employees are given two doses of vaccine,” he said.
Police officers’ association president Srinivas said the police were ready for any duty, but this time, there were special conditions.
“Who knows, even the police could be super spreaders of coronavirus during the elections,” he said.
