Make public Telangana CEO's report to EC: Shashidhar Reddy

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Senior Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy Sunday demanded that all the reports sent by the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) tothe Election Commission (EC) be made public.

"This (report) should include the correspondence relating to the delimitationof Assembly and Parliament constituencies consequent to the transfer of sevenmandals from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh," Reddy said in a statement.

Similarly the Election Commission should also put in public domain all reports from the Study Team, Telangana Chief Electoral Officer and Correspondence with Home Ministry, specifically the letter from MHA regarding delimitation of sevenmandals, he said.

According to Reddy, the Election Commission was "very quick" to issue an order on September 8 to stop all activities relating to special summary revision of photo electoral rolls with reference to January 1, 2019, even before the Study Team of the EC came to Hyderabad.

"Strangely, the EC has taken three weeks to issue the order about theapplicability of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in case of premature dissolution of the Assembly, followed by the caretaker government.

This has put the credibility of the EC at stake as it has allowed the caretaker government to announce all its projects, programmes and freebies, useful for the ruling party, which cannot be done after the MCC comes into play," Reddy alleged.

"We are going to put the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer on notice about the need to strictly implement the MCC, failing which we will be constrained to approach courts and demand a court-monitored implementation of the Model Code of Conduct in Telangana," Reddy said.

Telangana CEO Rajat Kumar in his status report early this month had told the Commission that polls can be held in October.

Claiming that the entire poll machinery has been put under great stress in the state, the Congress leader said, "it is strange that this is being done to suit the demand of a superstitious KCR, (as Rao is popularly known as)."