The ongoing tussle between the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh and state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar took yet another twist on Friday with the latter moving the high court again seeking to “punish” the government for the contempt of court.
In his petition, Nimmagadda pointed out that the state government had not been cooperating with the state election commission in conducting elections to the local bodies in February, despite the earlier orders of the high court, which clearly said the SEC was the final authority in conducting the elections.
He reminded that despite writing several letters to chief secretary Neelam Sawhney and panchayar raj principal secretary A K Dwivedi in the last few days, there has not been proper response from them till date.
Nimmagadda alleged that despite the court orders, the state government had not been releasing funds to the SEC, filling up pending vacancies in the commission and helping the SEC in preparation of electoral rolls.
He alleged that the state government was wilfully not following the high court orders and ignoring his letters.
He appealed to the court to direct the state government to cooperate with the SEC in the conduct of local body polls.
