Andhra Pradesh Police on Thursday took Kadapa MP Y S Avinash Reddy of the YSR Congress Party into preventive custody as he prepared to accompany party candidates filing nominations for local-body elections, citing the risk of clashes with Telugu Desam Party and Jana Sena candidates.
Police detained Reddy outside the YSRCP central office in Kadapa and took him away in a police vehicle. Candidates who were preparing to file their nomination papers were asked to proceed to the nomination centres, according to the report.
The detention comes as nominations are being filed for elections to 10,488 Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies. Polling for the MPTC and ZPTC seats is scheduled for November 3. The contests cover 659 ZPTC and 9,829 MPTC seats across 659 of Andhra Pradesh’s 663 mandals. Polling has been withheld for four ZPTC and 29 MPTC seats.
The preventive action follows allegations of intimidation and disruption during the nomination process for local bodies. Several other YSRCP leaders, including former minister S Sailajanath and Ketireddy Peddreddy, were also placed under house arrest in Anantapur, the report said.
The State Election Commission is separately dealing with the effect of Supreme Court directions issued on Wednesday. Under those directions, the SEC paused the election process across all 100 urban local bodies. Urban local-body elections had originally been scheduled for October 28.
The SEC is evaluating whether to provide a 48-hour extension for filing nominations in certain locations. It has sought reports from district collectors and superintendents of police on clashes between rival candidates and supporters, as well as incidents in which candidates were allegedly prevented from submitting nomination papers. The official decision on any extension was expected on Thursday.
The YSRCP had approached the Supreme Court on Monday seeking protection for its candidates. The party alleged that its candidates had been attacked, intimidated and prevented from filing nominations for urban local-body elections.
YSRCP state coordinator Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy said the party had recorded 76 incidents of violence across 11 districts during MPTC and ZPTC nominations. He said the incidents included attacks, house confinement, threats and destruction of nomination papers. YSR Kadapa district reported 22 incidents, followed by Palnadu with 18, and Annamayya and Tirupati with 11 each. The remaining incidents were reported across seven districts.
Reddy also alleged that TDP cadres had threatened YSRCP candidates with fabricated narcotics and other criminal cases to force them to withdraw their nominations. The party said it would place these developments before the Supreme Court and seek the transfer or removal of officials responsible for election duties. The SEC’s next steps depend on the district-level reports and its decision on the proposed nomination extension.
