THE ELECTION Commission (EC) has issued instructions to the chief electoral officer (CEO) IV Subba Rao to register cases against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy. The commission has faulted Reddy for addressing a press conference and appealing people to vote for the Congress Party on Wednesday (May 28), a day after the completion of the campaign period.

The CEO filed a complaint in Saifabad police station in Hyderabad, during the small hours of Thursday. As per the directions, he asked all the 10 collectors to file the cases against the CM in respective police stations. Accordingly, cases were registered against Reddy.

Besides this, cases were also booked against five television channels as per the directions of the EC for telecasting the press conference of the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, in a face saving way the Congress party lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against leaders of almost all the opposition parties alleging violation of code.

In the complaint submitted to the CEO, the Congress leaders alleged that Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president, N Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief, K Chanderasekhar Rao, Lok Satta Party president, N Jayaprkash Narayan, senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), M Venkaiah Naidu, state secretary of the Communist Party of India, Marxist B V Raghavulu, and CPMs senior leader Sitaram Yechury have violated the election code by appealing to the people through print and electronic media to support their respective parties.

CEO Rao said that the issue would be referred to the Election Commission and called for reports from the respective collectors. The direction of the EC has dampened the mood as he has given directions against interviewving the candidates and the voters till the elections are over. The channels were even directed not to telecast ’opinion programme’.

The electoral officer has warned that criminal cases would be booked against the photographers if they tried to catch the voters while casting their vote inside the polling booths.

Meanwhile, the TDP demanded that Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy step down in the wake of Election Commissions directive to register a case against him for violating Section 126 of the Representation of People Act by holding a press conference on Wednesday.