Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar and the Andhra Pradesh government have had their fair share of differences ever since Nimmagadda chose to postpone the municipal elections last year, due to the spread of Coronavirus in the state. The SEC refused to budge on his decision back then, which almost cost the SEC his post.
Now, yet again, the SEC refuses to bend to the government. The government wants the SEC to conduct the Zilla Parishad and Mandal Parishad elections before his retirement, but the SEC is ready to face a legal battle over this than to conduct the elections.
Right now, the SEC is more concerned over who leaked his letter to the governor, where he wrote about Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy and Botsa Satyanarayana and even took the Raj Bhavan to court in the issue. He even requested the High Court of AP to order a CBI inquiry into the matter, to get to know the source of leakage of the letter. Raj Bhavan’s principal secretary, chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh and the two ministers have been made respondents by Nimmagadda, in the case.
The judge who heard the arguments for this case invoked “note before me”, and referred the petition to the Chief Justice, requesting the CJ to assign another judge for the case.