Bureaucrats keep Andhra Pradesh Minister SC Reddy waiting for hours as they skip meeting

VIJAYAWADA: The tussle between the Election Commission of India and the State government escalated on Tuesday with none of the officials turning up for the review meeting convened by Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy in the Secretariat.

A communication was sent to the Principal Secretary and Special Commissioner of Agriculture on April 24 by the minister’s office, informing them that the minister was desirous of discussing with them on April 30 the measures to tackle drought and emergencies that might arise out of unforeseen natural calamities. In spite of the advance notice, the officials chose not to attend the meeting. After waiting for three hours in his chambers, Somireddy left the Secretariat without interacting with media persons.

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The minister’s next move will gain significance as he recently announced that he would resign from his ministership and approach the Supreme Court if the Election Commission of India (ECI) barred him from holding review meetings to discuss matters requiring immediate attention. Sources said that the officials informed the minister’s office that they could not attend the review as they were preoccupied with important affairs relating to Chittoor district.

However, reliable sources close to the minister said that he would wait for a clear explanation from the officials as to whether they were prevented by the Election Commission from attending his review meeting or there were any other specific reasons for their absence.

The sources were of the view that the officials could either have put off their meeting on Chittoor district or informed the minister well in advance about their preoccupation and saved him from embarrassment of waiting for hours in his chambers. The sources suspect that there was more than that meets the eye behind the two bureaucrats failure to attend the minister’s meeting.

The sources further clarified that the officials forwarded the communication they had received from the minister’s office on the proposed review meeting to the Election Commission seeking to know whether they could attend the meeting or not. However, the EC reportedly merely suggested that the officials take a call themselves after going through the guidelines on Model Code of Conduct. In the face of non-committal stand from the EC, the bureaucrats decided to stay off the meeting instead of inviting unnecessary headache, the sources observed.