Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and lodged a protest over its decision to hold re-poll in five polling booths in Chandragiri Assembly segment in Chittoor Parliamentary seat after 25 days. During his meeting, Naidu also asked the poll body to take action against BJP candidate Pragya Thakur for her remarks describing Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse as a "patriot".
Naidu questioned the rationale behind re-polling in five Assembly seats after the complaint was made by the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP).
In the meeting with the EC, Naidu said that he requested the poll panel to take a serious note of the series of complaints filed by his party including against the repoll ordered in Chandragiri Assembly segment in the Andhra Pradesh and counting of votes in the entire constituency if discrepancy found in VVPAT slips with five mandated Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in any part of the country.
"As on today, the ECI's decisions are very controversial, one-sided, pro-establishment and pro-government. During the entire election, they were supporting the government. It is unfortunate," he told reporters after the meeting. Questioning the working style of the poll panel, Naidu said, "I am the party president for the last 25 years. I have never seen this type of Election Commission. The poll body has ordered repolling after 25 days. They have to address all grievances simultaneously, they have to take proper action," Naidu said.
In the letter, Naidu asked that the EC has already conducted re-polling in five other polling stations in three districts on May 6, based on certain complaints. "If there were any issues in the polling stations in Chandragiri assembly constituency, why didn't the Commission enquire into the same and conduct the re-polling on May 6?"
Naidu lamented that the EC once again showed its bias by ignoring the TDP demand for re-poll while accepting a similar demand by YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) more than a month after the polling.