Big Jolt To Jagan: SC Rejects House Motion Petition

In what can be seen as a big jolt to AP state government that declared an open war against AP State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar and his decision to conduct local body polls, the Supreme Court of India has rejected AP state government’s house-motion petition over the conduction of panchayat elections.

To prevent Nimmagadda from moving forward and to stop him from announcing the poll schedule, the Jagan-led government along with the employees unions have moved the Supreme Court and filed the House-motion petition. The Apex court made it clear to the petitioners that it will take up the hearing on Monday. With this, AP state government is likely to make an appeal to Nimmagadda to postpone the announcement of poll schedule till SC’s hearing of the case on Monday. It is heard that Nimmagadda is in no mood to oblige AP government’s appeal.

Earlier, Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar has got clearance from AP High Court that gave its go ahead on the conduction of the local body polls. With the High Court’s direction, Nimmagadda announced that the Panchayat elections will be held in four phases on Feb 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th as per the previous schedule.

So, AP SEC is likely to formally announce the poll schedule tomorrow and the election code is going to come into force in the state. Meanwhile, legal experts opine that there are no precedents in the history where the Supreme Court intervened in the conduction of election once the EC announced the schedule. With this, all eyes are on SC’s hearing on Monday. The battle between CM Jagan and AP SEC is getting worse for sure.