It has been more than two years since one has heard the name of retired IAS officer Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar.
After successfully fighting a legal battle with the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government to retain his State Election Commissioner post, he went into a silent mode soon after his retirement.
However, his legal battle with the Jagan government did not end with retaining the SEC post.
He also waged a war to get his voting right in Duggirala village in Guntur district, which was rejected on the ground that he had been staying in Hyderabad.
On Friday, the state high court, acting on a petition filed by Ramesh Kumar, ordered that he be given the voting right in Duggirala.
The court asked the electoral registration officer to enrol his name as a voter, acting on his application, through due procedure.
After Duggirala tehsildar turned down his application stating that he doesn’t reside in the village, the SEC filed an appeal with then district collector Dinesh Kumar, who did not take any action on his petition.
Subsequently, Ramesh Kumar approached the high court seeking inclusion of his name in the voters’ list if the district administration rejects his appeal.
The government argued that though he was a native of Duggirala village in Mangalagiri constituency, he had been living in Hyderabad for long and got his name enrolled in the electoral list there.
While many leaders, including then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh got their votes shifted to AP, the SEC never made any attempt to transfer his voting right to AP despite working as SEC of the state.
As per rules, residing in a particular place is mandatory for grant of vote in that area. But Ramesh Kumar made the attempt to shift his vote to his native place only after getting reinstated as SEC. He did not exercise his franchise in the 2019 general elections in AP.
Ramesh Kumar claimed that he had cancelled his vote in Hyderabad and had applied for fresh enrolment in Guntur district, but his application was rejected. Hence, he was approaching the court.
