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HC directs EC to produce records of TDP's recognition

The Andhra Pradesh high court has directed the Election Commission to produce its records pertaining to the grant of recognition to the Telugu Desam Party led by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

After hearing counsel for the EC, P Sarathy, a division bench consisting of.Justices B Subhashan Reddy and.Vaman Rao expressed the view that it was necessary to look into the EC records to find out whether the Commission had conducted itself in an objective manner or whether the decision was biased.

The court gave the directive on a petition by Mohan Babu, the film actor and Rajya Sabha member, demanding that the TDP be derecognised.

Speaking for the bench, Justice B Subhashan Reddy, however, rejected the request of Mohan Babu's counsel that the court should issue notice to the TDP also, and said unless the court found any irregularity in the matter, it was not necessary to issue notice to the TDP.

In his petition, Mohan Babu contended that though it was mandatory under Section 29(a) of the Representation of Peoples Act for all parties to express faith and allegiance to the Constitution, the TDP, led by Naidu, had omitted this commitment in the party constitution and thereby deserved to be derecognised.

He alleged that the TDP had lost its political character after the August 1995 split. The party was run more like a family property of Naidu and there was no inner-party democracy, he charged.

UNI

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