Naidu’s civic polls get CCTV, reopened nominations and no clean bill
The Supreme Court refused to halt Andhra Pradesh’s elections, but ordered evidence preserved after complaints that candidates were blocked from filing.
The Supreme Court ordered CCTV footage from nomination and polling centres to be preserved.
The TDP government in Andhra Pradesh has not exactly received a certificate of electoral serenity. The Supreme Court ordered safeguards after the YSR Congress alleged that candidates were threatened, attacked or prevented from filing nominations for urban local-body elections. It later declined to stop the polls, leaving the government with the less glamorous task of explaining what happened on camera.
The State Election Commission’s October 22 notification said “some candidates” had been intimidated or attacked, had their nomination papers torn, or were otherwise prevented from filing. It reopened nominations on October 23 and 24 in four urban local bodies, after examining reports from Collectors, election officials and police authorities. That is an administrative finding that complaints existed and required action. It is not a judicial finding that the TDP, police or alliance supporters were responsible.
The Supreme Court’s October 21 order deferred publication of the final candidate list, required the SEC to examine representations and directed the Andhra Pradesh DGP to provide police protection, CCTV coverage and deployment at nomination centres. At the October 27 hearing, the Court refused to conduct a “fishing or roving inquiry” or postpone the elections. It directed that CCTV footage from nomination and polling centres be preserved until the period for election petitions expired.
That leaves the Andhra government and election machinery with a straightforward problem: preserve the evidence and let the record speak. The YSRCP’s allegations remain allegations; the TDP has made counter-allegations of violence, also unproved. But a government confident that nothing happened does not need the Supreme Court to tell it to keep the cameras running. Chandrababu Naidu’s administration now has to show whether its election safeguards worked in substance, not merely whether somebody filed a compliance report. Democracy is not protected by a press note and a locked CCTV cupboard.