The Election Commission on Friday decided to send a team of officials to Hyderabad on September 11 for making an assessment of the poll preparedness of the machinery in the State where the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti has sought early elections by dissolving the assembly. After a meeting with EC officials, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) OP Rawat said the EC would assess if the polls in the State could be held along with four others, dismissing "astrological predictions" over the dates. The CEC also stated that the Commission will assess the possibility of holding the polls along with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
"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. A team of ECI officials headed by Umesh Sinha, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner, will be visiting Hyderabad on Tuesday, 11 September 2018 and will give the report to the election commission after the completion of the visit," the EC said in a statement.
The commission met a day after the Telangana government headed by K Chandrashekar Rao dissolved the assembly and the governor acted on the cabinet decision to end the tenure of the assembly whose term was there till June next year.
Earlier in the day, CEC Rawat rejected the claims made by sources that Telangana Assembly Elections may not be held along with four other states. "We'll assess if Telangana elections can be held with other 4 states. Any astrological predictions (over dates) made by anyone is notwithstanding," Rawat said while hitting out at the sources which claimed that Telangana Assembly Elections might not necessarily be held along with other four states.
"ECI will review the ground level preparedness status with CEO Telangana and make up its mind about timing of elections for Telangana to be announced in due course. Whenever a House is dissolved prematurely, as per Hon'ble Supreme Court's guidelines laid down in 2002, ECI is required to initiate immediate steps for holding elections for constituting Legislative Assembly on the first occasion and in any case within 6 months from date of premature dissolution of the Assembly," Rawat said.
Some media reports on Friday said that Rawat appeared to hint at the possibility of early elections in Telangana. The CEC hinted that elections in Telangana may be called along with the polls due in four other states in December this year, a report said.
According to officials, the EC will also assess about how many EVMs and VVPATs need to conduct Telangana assembly polls. The EC will also assess whether is it possible for the EC to conduct these polls along with 4 other states whose assemblies expire in December/January.
The Congress and some other opposition parties cried foul over the development, calling it the result of a "dubious pact" between Rao and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speculation was rife over the last few weeks about the likelihood of Rao going for an early election as he did not want national issues raised during the next year's Lok Sabha polls to overshadow local factors, which the Telangana Rashtra Samiti(TRS) feels, are in its favour.