When YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, he had to face a tough time from the then state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar in the first three years.
Nimmagadda proved to be a tough nut to crack as he rejected the recommendations of Jagan in conducting local body elections in 2020 on the pretext of Covid-19 pandemic.
He created hurdles at every stage for Jagan to have his say in the conduct of gram panchayat elections.
Even during the conduct of elections in 2021, Nimmagadda entertained the petitions of the then opposition Telugu Desam Party in postponing the elections.
When Jagan got Nimmagadda removed and appointed retired judge of Tamil Nadu J Kanagaraj as SEC, he moved the court and won the legal battle.
Soon after Ramesh Kumar retired from his post in March 2021, Jagan appointed his favourite officer Neelam Sawhney as the SEC.
She had earlier worked as chief secretary and Jagan had got her extension as CS twice, because she was obeying his directions.
Now, same Neelam Sawhney has become a tough nut for Jagan again.
She has not been entertaining any of the YSRCP requests for preventing alleged irregularities by the TDP in the by-elections to various local bodies – rural and urban.
In the recent by-elections to Pulivendula and Vontimitta ZPTC seats, too, Neelam refused to take any action against the TDP based on the representations from the YSRCP.
Though the YSRCP leaders produced evidence on the TDP malpractices in the by-elections, Neelam did not accept the same and went ahead with conducting the polling, rejecting the appeals. This has terribly upset Jagan, who thought she was his favourite officer.
Maybe, Neelam thought of not creating troubles for herself before her term ends in another few months.
She doesn’t want to antagonise the TDP government at this stage, as Nimmagadda had done during Jagan regime, sources said.