HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Monday directed the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Telangana to decide within a week the plea of Congress' Nampally assembly candidate Mohammed Feroz Khan on appointment of polling agents in various booths.
"As the previous norm allowing only residents under a polling station to be appointed as agents was amended by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in 2021, the CEO should allow us to appoint agents from outside the purview of that polling booth," he said in his plea..
After Khan's counsel Ponaka Rahul Reddy told a bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice NV Shravan Kumar that the CEO had not responded to their plea till now, ECI counsel Avinash Desai said an order will be issued within a week. The bench accordingly disposed of the plea.
Dealing with another plea by Khan on the list of absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voters, the bench dubbed it premature and dismissed it after the ECI counsel said it will be prepared after November 25 and given to returning officers and booth level officers. It will not be given to the contesting candidate, the ECI counsel Avinash Desai said.
Meanwhile, Feroz Khan's counsel P Nagendra Reddy, however, charged the ECI of reluctantly doing its job.
"It is acting only after our complaints and writ petitions before the HC. They will not do their job without such pressure," he said.
The bench asked him not to make vague allegations and dismissed his plea.
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