2 panchayat officials censured by Andhra SEC for failing to perform duties

Andhra Pradesh State Election Commissioner (SEC) N Ramesh Kumar on Tuesday censured two top officials of the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department of the state over the failure of performing their duties.

SEC Kumar stated that the 2021 electoral rolls have not been ready due to the negligence of Panchayat Raj department officials and 3.61 lakh young voters have lost their voting rights.

The SEC in a letter to the state Chief Secretary Adityanath Das mentioned that Gopala Krishna Dwivedi, the Principal Secretary and M Girija Shankar, Commissioner of Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department of Government of Andhra Pradesh have failed to fulfil their responsibilities and their act of violation of rules should be noted in their service records.

SEC said the officers (Dwivedi and Shankar) have been 'hostile and vindictive' during their interaction with the Election Commission and tried to 'scuttle the independence of the Commission'.

According to Kumar, the presence of the abovementioned officials will 'counterproductive and deleterious to the functioning of grass root democratic institutions'. Both the officers are 'unsuited to discharge their responsibilities cast on their office and on them lacking the qualities of mind and heart as evidenced time and again", said SEC.

On January 8, SEC N Ramesh Kumar announced the schedule of elections of gram panchayats in four phases beginning from February 5. Following this, Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary Adityanath Das wrote a letter to SEC requesting him to resume local body elections once the total vaccination programme along with coronavirus management is completed in the state.

( With inputs from ANI )