The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee has requested the Election Commission of India to consider imposition of model code of conduct in the State immediately to restrain Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, his Cabinet colleagues and MLAs from participating in official programmes and announcement of new schemes.
TPCC election commission coordination committee chairman G. Niranjan said Bharat Rashtra Samiti president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao announced the list of party candidates for 115 out of he 119 constituencies on Monday and mentioned that since candidates were declared, campaign for the Assembly election had also commenced. “There is every scope for the ruling party, ministers, MLAs and party leaders to misuse their power to influence voters with the help of administration and police officials,” he said in a letter addressed to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar.
He recalled that in 2018, the schedule was announced on October 6, notification was issued on November 12 and poll was held on December 7. If the Election Commission issued the schedule like previous polls, there would still be 46 days left. In view of this, the ECI was requested to consider imposition of model code of conduct without any delay.
He also requested the CEC to immediately direct the State and district officials as well as police to keep themselves away from the programmes of the Chief Minister, ministers and MLAs except for bandobast.