With the Supreme Court giving a green signal for the conduct of the elections, the government has begun making arrangements. The employee’s associations have also taken a step backwards. The Election Commission has speeded up the steps for conduct of elections and also recommended impeachment of Panchayat Raj Chief Secretary Dwivedi and Commissioner Girija Shankar. In this perspective, the comments of government advisor Sajjala have become a topic of discussion. Two issues have come to the fore. First is that there will be no political party symbol and second is unanimous.
There will be no party symbol in the Panchayat elections and the candidates are allotted symbols based on the nominations of the candidates. However, the candidates supported by the ruling party would have an advantage as the MPs, MLAs and Ministers supervise the election and assure the people about funding. Sajjala said that this was not an election to be fought on party symbols and that parties should support conducting the elections in a peaceful manner instead of raising tempers.
Not only Sajjala but also Minister Peddi Reddy and Botsa made such remarks. By making such comments, there is an effort to print YSRCP colour. The parties generally take the winning candidates in their account. The comments of Sajjala come at a time when it is said that the government is afraid of the elections.
When it comes to rewarding the unanimous election, this system was in place for many years and will there be in future also. The idea is the election expenditure will be avoided and the entire village would be going in one direction. Sajjala said that apart from encouraging unanimous decisions if the rules were violated, there will be action as per law and that they would be declared ineligible.
There are comments that the words of Sajjala were threatening. For unanimous elections, the government increased reward from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. It seems that the government wants to win with a unanimous formula instead of winning with people’s votes.
