Assembly bypolls close on heels of civic polls?

HYDERABAD: Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy's plan of holding municipal elections narrowly ahead of the byelections to 18 Assembly seats hinges on a host of factors, including how soon will the High Court accord permission for local body polls based on 2001 census.Election commissioner HS Brahma's statement in New Delhi on Saturday that byelections to 18 Assembly segments in Andhra Pradesh are likely to be held before the presidential election process begins in July suggests that the byelections might be held in the second half of June.If the High Court permits the state government to hold municipal elections based on 2001 data, it would still require a clear 50 days time from issuing the poll notification. That means, this election too will have to be in the second half of June.Kiran Kumar Reddy wants exactly this so that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will have no breather in campaigning. More than that, Jagan Mohan Reddy would have to have a complete re-orientation for the byelections, having exhausted himself with the municipal elections till then.The Congress strategy is to wear out Jagan Mohan Reddy with municipal elections as he would have to travel far and wide to cover over 100 municipalities and when the crucial Assembly byelections come, he would have very little time to campaign. For the Congress, it would not have much difficulty as there are at least three leaders, Kiran Reddy, Botcha Stayanarayana and Chiranjeevi to campaign simultaneously at different places.After the chief minister gave the go-ahead for the plan at a meeting of ministers at his camp office recently, officials got busy preparing a petition seeking permission from the High Court to go for municipal elections based on 2001 data. Since the state had argued against it in January, it would have do some explaining on the reversal of stand. It had argued that if local body elections were held based on 2001 census, justice would be denied to a number of people, particularly the disadvantaged sections.One argument that the government wants to put forth before the court to justify its U-turn is that because no elections were held to the municipalities for nearly one year, the Planning Commission has withheld `400 crore for 2012-13. Another argument will be that it would take at least one more year for the 2011 census to be made available."We are on the job. We will come up with a sound argument to convince the High Court," one official said. As soon as the chief minister returns from his tour of Chittoor and Kadapa districts on Monday evening, officials will take clearance from him and initiate the proceedings in the High Court.The entire strategy is based on so many ifs and buts and if everything falls in place, Kiran Reddy may succeed in implementing his strategy. "We cannot speculate on High Court orders. We only hope the direction would be in our favour. As there is no rule that the byelections should not be held immediately after municipal elections, we want to go in this direction," another official said.