SEC posting in a week, local body polls at earliest, AP govt tells high court

Vijayawada: The state govt on Tuesday informed the high court that the State Election Commissioner (SEC) will be appointed within a week, and it intends to hold local body elections at the earliest. The advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas told the high court that the file for the appointment of SEC is with the governor, who is the appointing authority.Multiple petitions have been filed before the high court with different pleas. The AP BC Association president Kesana Shankar Rao pleaded for holding elections only after completing BC census and deriving the percentage of reservation. Advocate Thandava Yogesh filed another PIL seeking directions to initiate the process of elections as the term of local bodies is nearing completion. Some of the sarpanches also filed petitions seeking to extend their tenure till the elections are held.The advocate general told the high court that the state govt is trying to hold elections to the local bodies as expeditiously as possible. He said that the planning department has already collected data on 99.44% of BC population, and the entire process will be completed within 10 days. A dedicated commission headed by former IAS officer Rajiv Ranjan Mishra has already started exercise to assess the backwardness of various castes and the reservation to be given to them.As the tenure of panchayats ended recently, the state govt appointed 5,770 special officers to 13,096 panchayats to oversee daily activities. He sought time to file an affidavit with all the details being taken by the state govt.Advocate Thandava Yogesh contended that the state govt should initiate the process well in advance, before the completion of tenure of panchayats, as per the directions of the Supreme Court. Arguing on behalf of Shankar Rao, senior counsel A Satya Prasad said that there was no clarity on BC census in the GO issued appointing a dedicated commission. He said that the high court earlier directed the state govt to conduct a BC census for deciding upon the reservations.Considering the arguments on all sides, the high court posted the matter for further hearing on April 16 and instructed the advocate general to file an affidavit with details.