Elections to local bodies in any state – gram panchayats, mandal parishads and zilla parishads – are purely a local affair.
The Constitution has clearly mentioned that while the general elections are held under the authority of the Election Commission of India, it is the responsibility of the state election commission to conduct the elections with the help of state police machinery.
So, the local body polls should be held with whatever official machinery that is prescribed in the Constitution.
It is nothing but natural that the ruling party in the state would have advantage in any local body elections because of the powers it has in extending benefits to the people in the rural areas.
And officials, including cops, too, would be under compulsion to favour the ruling party. It happens irrespective of which party is in the ruling -- whether it was the Congress or the TDP in the past or the YSR Congress party at present.
In the latest local body elections, too, there were instances of the officials favouring the YSRC in some mandal parishads and zilla parishads and the ruling party leaders making attempts to capture the seats unanimously.
The same thing happened in Telangana also, where the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi captured many MPTCs and ZPTCs unanimously.
But in majority of the MPTC, ZPTC and municipalities, there is a contest as a large number of opposition candidates and independents filed their nominations. But the opposition parties are trying to project as if the elections in the entire state are being manipulated in favour of the YSRC.
The opposition parties have gone to such an extent that they demanded conduct of elections to local bodies under control of the Election Commission of India (ECI) with Central police assistance.
While TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu demanded that the entire process of elections to local bodies be cancelled and fresh notification be given under the supervision of central forces, the BJP, declared that the paramilitary forces should be called for conducting the elections.
“We lost faith in the state police. They are acting as ruling YSR Congress workers. They are playing mute spectators to attacks on opposition party workers and are booking cases against the opposition on complaints from the ruling party,” BJP state president Kanna Lakshmi Narayana said.
This is ridiculous. If they have any complaints with regard to any sporadic incidents, they can complain to the State Election Commission or go to the court.
“Thank god, these opposition parties did not ask for the conduct of local body elections under the supervision of the United Nations and NATO security forces,” a journalist commented.
