Anti-TRS petitions put EC in a fix over bypolls

The Election Commission is unable to announce the dates of the ensuing bypolls in Tel-angana because of petitions challenging the victories of candidates from three of the segments in 2009 pending before the High Court.

Provisions in the Rep-resentation of People’s Act 1951 allow the EC to hold bypolls even when petitions challenging the declaration by the returning officer are pending. But in this instance, two petitioners (the nearest rivals) have requested that they be declared the winners and this has troubled the EC.

It is now consulting legal experts on whether it can hold bypolls in these three Assembly segments in this context. Bypolls to 12 Assembly segments have to be conducted before August 13 and the EC wants to issue notification by June end and hold polls in the last week of July.

The petitions before the HC challenge poll victories of Mr K.T.Rama Rao, son of TRS chief, Mr K. Cha-ndrasekhar Rao, (Sircilla), Mr Chennamaneni Ramesh (Vemulawada) and Mr Dasyam Vinay Bhaskar (Warangal West).