Even as the process to elect corporators and the Mayor to the Kakinada Municipal Corporation (KMC) is in progress, the prolonged legal battle challenging the very conduct of polls is still going on in the High Court.
Though the polling is slated for nine days from now, a petition seeking the cancellation of the election notification is scheduled for hearing this week. The fresh petition field by Ungarala Venkata Ramana and K. Ganga Raju has questioned the rationale behind conducting elections only to 48 of the 50 divisions by excluding from the election process three villages that have been paying taxes to the KMC.
The petition raised the issues of preparing the electoral rolls basing on the 2011 Census, and highlighted the errors in the rolls, before urging the court to suspend the operation of the election notification issued on August 3.
What prompted the State government to delay the election notification for seven long years and what gave the scope for the filing of a series of public interest litigation petitions in the court of law are interesting issues now.
Merger of villages
When the State government was supposed to conduct elections to the KMC in 2010, the Municipal Administration department proposed the merger of 37 gram panchayats on the outskirts of the city into the civic body and issued orders for including 10 villages.
The decision was challenged in the court in 2013, which was disposed of subsequently and followed by a set of PIL petitions on the issue.
In 2015, another PIL petition was filed seeking the conduct of elections to the civic bodies of Kakinada and Kurnool, in response to which the High Court asked the State government to conduct the polls within 60 days from the date of its judgment. As the order was not implemented, a contempt of court petition was filed against the State government.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Administration and Urban Development department approved the proposal sent by the KMC seeking approval to the proposed delimitation of divisions. The State government finalised the number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward classes and women in the civic body.
Notification
Following these developments, the Election Commission issued the notification to conduct the municipal polls, and the High Court ordered conducting elections only to 48 of the 50 divisions.
“Exempting two divisions from the poll process is against the law. The hurriedly conducted elections will not be of any help to the people, but stir up a hornet’s nest. That is why we are approaching the High Court seeking the cancellation of the entire election process and direct the Election Commission to issue notification afresh after clearing all the wrongs,” Mr. Venkata Ramana told The Hindu.