Senior TDP leader and former Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao on Friday wrote a letter to Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Kumar Meena, requesting him to direct all the District Election Officers / Returning Officers to identify the sensitive constituencies and get additional forces deployed there keeping in view the likelihood of political violence that pose a risk to the lives and property of citizens and political activists on the counting day and thereafter.
He also wanted that special attention be bestowed on the safety of strongrooms where the EVMs were kept, without giving scope for any deviation from the SOPs.
Mr. Umamaheswara Rao stated that he was placing on record the apprehensions about the security at the strongrooms by citing the attacks like the one on TDP candidate Pulivarthi Venkata Maniprasad (Nani) on the premises of Sri Padmavati Mahila Visva Vidyalayam in Tirupati, a “gala night” organised by the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) close to the strongroom at Acharya Nagarjuna University and the opening of the strongrooms in Vizianagaram with information only to the YSRCP leaders as proofs of the volatile law and order situation.
The ECI should, therefore, take necessary steps to maintain law and order, with due focus on the safety of strongrooms in view of the prevailing lawlessness, Mr. Umamaheswara Rao appealed.
