Avinash Desai, the standing counsel for the Election Commission, told the Telangana High Court that a decision on the BRS complaint regarding phone-tapping issue will be made by May 3. The complaint had asked for all parties and leaders to stop making negative remarks about BRS leaders by that date.
The court was handling a petition from M Sreenivas Reddy, the BRS general secretary, who wanted the Chief Election Commissioner to stop national and state parties from making harmful remarks about BRS leaders during the Lok Sabha election campaign. Mayur Reddy, representing the BRS general secretary, said that unproven statements were being made about BRS members without evidence, violating election guidelines.
The court dismissed the petition, stating that the Election Commission would handle it. In a separate case, the court rejected a request from BJP candidate Konda Vishweshwar Reddy to change the serial numbers on the ballot paper for the Chevella Lok Sabha election. The Chief Justice noted that it was up to the Election Commission to decide on such matters.
Avinash Desai explained that the commission couldn’t make any changes due to the current model code of conduct. Reddy had asked for a minimum of ten serial numbers between candidates with similar names to avoid confusion for voters.
