The Andhra Pradesh High Court (HC) on the 21st of May, announced its verdict on the awaited Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) and the Zila Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) elections.
The HC bench reviewed the pending petition regarding the MPTC and ZPTC election conduct filed by several leaders of the opposition. In April, Varla Ramaiah, a senior leader of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) filed the petition against the conduct of the ZPTC and MPTC elections. In the petition, the TDP leader said the 4 week election code also called Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was not imposed as per the directions of the Supreme Court. Besides TDP leader, JanaSena Secretary Chillapalli Srinivasa Rao and a Bharat Janata Party (BJP) leader Paturi Nagabhushanam also filed separate petitions seeking the reconduct of the ZPTC and MPTC election.
Back then, on the 7th of April, the AP High Court bench dismissed the petition of the TDP leader and gave a green signal to conduct the MPTC and the ZPTC elections in A.P., as per schedule, the 8th of April. The court also adjourned the case to the 15th of April and suspended the counting of votes until further notice.
Later the matter was transferred to another bench of AP HC, which announced its verdict on the 21st of May. During the hearing, the new single bench of the High Court cancelled the conducted ZPTC and the MPTC elections.
Justifying the judgment, the HC bench said, the election process held on the 8th of April, 2021 in A.P., violated the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court (SC.) As per the SC guidelines, MCC and notification of the election should be issued 4 weeks ahead of the voting day.
However, the Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner (SEC) Neelam Sawhney failed to meet the same and issued notification on the 1st of April, a week before the conduct of elections.
With this, the previously held the ZPTC and the MPTC elections had no importance and it would be conducted again from the scratch.
This could be a good opportunity for opposition like the TDP, the JanaSena and the BJP alliance to defeat the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) in the ZPTC and MPTC elections.
The new schedule of the ZPTC and the MPTC elections are yet to be announced.
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