EC seeks report as meets ‘violated’ the model code of conduct.
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu continues to be under the scanner of Election Commission. As the first phase of the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls ended a week ago, on 11 April, the EC called for a report on the official review meetings held by Naidu at the Secretariat on 17 and 18 April while the model code of conduct (MCC) was in force.
As per the MCC issued by EC, no Chief Minister or minister should visit their offices in Secretariat and conduct official review meetings or issue orders on routine administrative matters with political consequences. The MCC, which came into force on 10 March, when the EC announced the poll schedule will last till 27 May, the completion of the election process.
Naidu, who went to Delhi immediately after the polling on 11 April to complain against the EC’s alleged bias against his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and toured Tamil Nadu and Karnataka for campaigning for the Opposition DMK and JDS, returned to Andhra capital Amaravati on Tuesday and started official reviews with ministers and officials. However, chief secretary L.V. Subramanyam, who was appointed by the EC in place of Anil C. Punetha two weeks ago, refused to attend the meeting and conveyed the same to the Chief Minister. Other officials were confused over the differences between the Chief Minister and the chief secretary (CS), and some took the issue to the notice of the EC which called for a report from its Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) G.K. Dwivedi on the meetings.
The Opposition YSR Congress, too, lodged a complaint with the EC against Naidu issuing orders to clear around 9,100 pending bills to a tune of around Rs 2,354 crore at the meeting. Party MP Vijay Sai Reddy in his petition to the EC said that the Chief Minister’s announcement that the waters from the Polavaram project would be released by July was a violation of the MCC.
Naidu on Thursday called for another review meeting on home and law and order subjects, but several senior officials, including CS Subramanyam, made it clear that they cannot attend it as they had received fresh directions from the CEO on the MCC. It is learnt that CEO Dwivedi on Wednesday circulated again a copy of MCC, which bars the Chief Minister from holding officials’ meetings on routine matters.
Even Home Secretary Anuradha and DGP R.P. Thakur, too, expressed their inability to attend the meeting, thus forcing Naidu to cancel it.
CEO Dwivedi told this newspaper on phone from Amaravati that the EC had asked him to submit a report on the minutes of the CM’s meetings on Wednesday and Thursday and that he had sent it on Friday.
Naidu’s official meetings and the EC’s objections to it have kicked off a fresh round of controversy between the ruling and the Opposition parties over the weekend. Minister Nakka Anand Babu and TDP MLC Rajendra Prasad accused the EC of playing into the hands of YSR Congress leaders and said that the restrictions on the CM meetings were illegal and unfair.
However, YSR Congress spokesperson Vasireddy Padma said that the MCC prohibits the ministers and the Chief Minister from taking decisions on routine administrative matters which might have political impact. She said that the EC’s orders clearly state that the Chief Minister can hold meetings only if there is a natural calamity or a law and order situation, but not on regular issues.
The raging row between CM Naidu and EC on the one hand and Naidu and chief secretary Subramanyam, on the other hand, is not limited to the political sphere. A group of retired IAS officials, most of them in the rank of chief secretary and principal secretary, dashed off a letter to the EC objecting to CM Naidu’s style of functioning, especially his tirade against chief secretary Subramanyam.
The Chief Minister criticised the retired IAS officials for attacking him and indirectly backing Jagan at a time when the elections were underway. “People can understand their (retired IAS officials) game-plan. If they want to speak out on public issues, why were they silent when EVMs in Andhra Pradesh were stuck on the polling day? Why were they silent on EC’s bias against me,” asked Naidu at Kadapa on Thursday night.
The Election Commission refused to receive his delegation to discuss EVMs’ authenticity as it included V. Hari Prasad, a techie who now faces charges of theft of a voting machine in 2010.