Our lives more important than elections: Andhra govt employees

Amaravati, Jan 21 : Andhra Pradesh High Court’s green signal to conduct the rural local bodies elections drew an immediate response from the government employees associations, who highlighted that their lives are more important than the elections amid the Coronavirus pandemic on Thursday.
“Whatever be the judgment, it is our lives. The Governor should use his discretionary powers to temporarily postpone the elections. We have already said that there will be many judgments but the lives are ours,” exhorted an employee.
Employees are demanding that they should all first receive the Covid vaccine than have elections.
“We also would like to tell the state election commissioner and the state government to sit together and discuss to be on the same page. Please wait until we get the vaccine, after that you can conduct the elections,” he said.
He reminded that this is not the time for the government and the SEC to file cases against each other as employees are the ones who actually go into the field amid the pandemic to conduct the elections.
As these are panchayat elections, employees are reasoning that a whole host of departments have to work together, right from the village revenue assistant onwards, requiring a lot of back and forth on ballot papers, which could pose a risk to all the people involved in the process.