Andhra Pradesh State Election Commission today issued the notification for holding Gram Panchayat election across the state in four phases even though the state government had urged it to revise the schedule citing the ongoing vaccination drive and government employees have threatened to boycott the elections due to the pandemic.

Chief secretary Adityanath Das wrote a letter to the State Election Commissioner N Ramesh Kumar pointing out that it will be difficult to vaccinate the polling personnel as well as their deployment for poll duty. He said the state government was ready to conduct elections after 600 days of completion of the first round of vaccination of frontline staff involved in the poll process. The vaccine will be effective only after the first and second doses and another four weeks according to health ministry guidelines. The state government has also moved SC against the schedule announced by the SEC.

The SEC, however, announced polls in four phases which will be held on 5, 9, 13 and 14 February. Polling will be held between 6:30 am and 3:30 am and counting will commence from 4 pm on the same day. Submission of nominations papers will begin from tomorrow.

Ramesh also criticised the higher officials of Panchayat Raj department blaming them as the Commission was forced to conduct elections according to 2019 electoral rolls and said action would be initiated against those responsible at the appropriate time. Incidentally, Gopal Krishna Dwivedi the departmental secretary was the chief electoral officer of AP during 2019 General and Assembly elections and had been quite strict with the previous TDP regime.

It is not only the state government but even employees have threatened to boycott the elections due to the pandemic situation and challenged the SEC to terminate as many of them as he can. As leaders of employee unions made belligerent statements in a letter to the DGP the State Election Commissioner complained that the chairman of the Federation of State Government Employees, Venkatarami Reddy has issued a death threat against him and asked the police to keep a close watch on the activities of Mr Reddy.Quoting Reddy who in a much publicised statement had said: “The Constitution has given a right to every individual to defend their life. In continuance of this right the Constitution has given the right to kill,”the SEC in a letter to DGP Gautam Sawang wrote: “The Commission views this as most provocating and an unfortunate comment and a potential death threat issued against the Commissioner in his personal capacity. The Commission therefore desires the Director General of Police, AP to take due cognizance of the above and keep a close watch on the activities are likely to lead to events and situations resulting in physical hurt to the Commissioner.

The ruling YSRCP leaders have alleged Ramesh Kumar has been keen to hold polls in February this year since he will be retiring in March.

The state government and the SEC have been in locked in a legal battle for almost a year over conducting local bodies poll.