In wake of Telangana Cabinet dissolution, poll panel to visit the state for Election vigilance

Hyderabad, September 8: With the decision of dissolving the state assembly, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao gave a major blow to the state politics. With the governor’s decision to dissolve the Assembly on the recommendations of the K Chandrashekar Rao-led cabinet, a team of Election Commission will be visiting Telangana on September 11 to assess poll preparedness in the southern state.

The decision was taken at a full meeting of the commission chaired by Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat. The Election Commission said in a statement on Friday, "In view of the dissolution of the state legislative assembly of Telangana, the Commission has decided to send a team of ECI officials to assess the situation in the state regarding poll preparedness.” After visiting the state, the team will send a report to the Commission on completion of the visit.

The Election Commissioner O P Rawat gave a hint on the possibility of holding Assembly elections in Telangana along with the polls due in four other states in December this year. He further added that the commission would review the ground-level status with the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana and make up its mind about the timing of elections to be announced in due course.

The Election Commissioner speaking to the media before the meeting said, "The Supreme Court has ruled clearly that in case of the House dissolution, polls should be held on the first occasion because caretaker governments cannot continue and get the advantage. You cannot dissolve the House and continue for six months as a caretaker government."

Assembly elections are due in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram later this year. The term of the Telangana Assembly was ending on June 19, 2019, but the Telangana Rashtra Samiti government chose to dissolve it, seeking early polls.

Background:

It was on September 6; Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekhar Rao obtained the nod of his colleagues on dissolving the Assembly and immediately reached the Raj Bahan seeking the Governor ESL Narasimhan to recommend for early polls.

It has been noted that the Telangana Chief Minister Chandrashekhar Rao is said to be against holding the Assembly elections with the Lok Sabha elections, which are together scheduled for around April-May 2019 in the normal course.

In a press communique, the Principal Secretary to the Governor said that KCR and his council of Ministers called on the Governor and presented the resolution, “recommending the dissolution of the First Legislative Assembly of Telangana State.”