Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 20: While reacting to the news published in a section of press regarding holding of Panchayat elections in the State during March, 2017, Kuldeep Kumar Rao, Ram Singh Chauhan and S. Gurtaj Singh , members of Movement for Peace, Equality & Justice have jointly expressed great anguish and surprise on the amendments made in the Panchyat Raj Act 1986, allowing Panches of the state to nominate their own Sarpanch snatching rights of the electorates of Panchayat to elect Sarpanch exercising their right of franchise in a democratic manner by ballot.
The coalition government has opened another door of corruption in a basic democratic Institution like Panchyat where under it has been made easy to negotiate with few Panches instead of thousands of electorates of whole Panchyat. In this way, the so elected Sarpanch will be a puppet in the hands of few Panches and will not be liable or answerable to the general public of the Panchyat, they said and added that BJP-PDP combine have gone one step ahead than the previous NC or NC-Congress combine governments in murdering the basic unit of democracy by depriving the electorates their right to elect their own Sarpanch. Why no Block Dev. Council & District Dev. Board in the state as per provisions of Panchyati Raj Act in the state for last 70 years, they asked. All states in the country have Block Samities (Block Dev. Councils) & Zilla Parishads (District Dev. Boards) for last 7 decades, why no such Institutions in J&K state ,they questioned.
The BJP in the state government partnership, claiming to be the champion of people's right through democratic process, is simply becoming a tool in the hands of PDP. It simply gives an impression to the general public that there is no difference between the previous NC, Congress-PDP & the present government. The present amendment in the Panchayati Raj amounts to throwing dust in the eyes of the people who strongly believe in democratic process & democratic Institutions, the activists said and added that this exercise simply aims at securing central assistance worth more than 1000 crores annually in the name of Panchyati Raj Institutions.
They demanded that like all states of the country, Block Dev. Councils & District Dev. Boards must be constituted in the state as per provisions of the Act and the Chairman of the Block Dev. Council & Sarpanch of each Panchyat must be direct Public representatives through direct voting of the electorates so that people's faith in the democratic Institutions is strengthened |
