This time total 1, 89,099 candidates are in the fight of panchayat elections of 2017 in Odisha, out of which 26,539 are contesting for post of Sarapanch, 22,109 candidates for Panchayat Samiti member, 3,288 for Zilla Parishad member and 1, 37,163 persons for ward member posts as revealed from State Election Commission sources.
There is a provision of reservation in posts for SCs, STs and OBCs and since 2012, minimum 50 per cent of seats is reserved for women. The requirement of rotation of different social groups and genders is in practice to ensure the representation of all social groups across gender. About 26 million eligible voters are going to elect 853 Zilla Parisad members, 6,802 Sarpanchs, 6,802 Panchayat Samiti members and 92,052 ward members and half of these posts would be occupied by women.
local self-governance has been playing an important role in power sharing at the grassroots and in the process of development of the women, poor and marginalized as well as rural areas of the State.
Devolution of power has extended the scope of development administration to Panchayati raj institutions. Many of the welfare schemes and programmes for rural poor and marginalized such as employment, housing, social security, food security etc are being implemented through Panchayati raj institutions. The Central Government has allocated Rs 3 lakh crore per year for rural areas in the current Union Budget along with a host of schemes beneficial for rural areas.
In this context, the election for Panchayati raj institutions is quite significant. There are many educated professionals and experienced people joining Panchayat election to get the scope of leading development works of the Panchayats which is a very healthy indication for democracy.
The current trends in Panchayat poll have exhibited very disturbing signals which are not conducive for building inclusive democracy through free and fair participation of women and other socially marginalized sections in rural areas. There are reports of violence, murder, abduction, physical attack and personal vilification, and many more disturbing incidents happening having a bearing on the voters. In pre poll violence, two people were killed recently in Malkangiri and Dhenkanal. Maoists also abducted Government officials. Along with violence the corrupt practices, undue influence, bribery, distribution of liquor, free feast, gifts and many more acts of favoritism have been taking place to woo the poor and illiterate voters.
Corrupt practices are well defined in Section 41 of the Odisha Gramapanchayat Act, 1964. These are organized by the leaders of major political parties to attract the voters. Though there is model code of conduct (MCC), but it has been violated by the parties and their candidates. Ruling party leaders, film stars, celebrities and local influential people are mobilized by political parties to motivate the voters in support of the party candidates. There are restrictions over involvement of parties in power and persons holding public office but many of them use their official position to influence the election campaign.
Reports revealed that in many places the candidate selection process is highly unfair and the dominant sections select the representatives from marginalized sections and usually the most loyal and obedient from among the marginalized are chosen as party candidates without formal consultation with the communities. Citizens are forced to cast their votes to any of the party candidate in a multiple choice without alternative as it is pre decided by the ruling parties. Social mobility within the village and meeting the voters itself is a challenge for the women and marginalized section candidates because of local customs, traditions, and socio-cultural restrictions in practice against the women and low caste people.
The election process in scheduled areas and interior parts with threat of violence by left Wing Extremists have posed a major challenge to conduct of free and fair elections in these areas. Maoists warn the people of abstaining from voting in many parts. The voters as well as the officials managing elections are in panic condition without adequate State protection.
Many genuine candidates from the poor and marginalized section background and candidates representing social movements, local organizations and small parties are unable to match with candidates backed by ruling political parties.
The SEC has fixed the ceiling limit of election expenditure of candidates, but it is not adhered to.
The ceiling for candidates for Zilla Parisad is Rs 2 lakh and for Sarpanch and Samiti member is Rs 80,000. However, the expenses by candidates are many times over.
It has been argued that adequate representation of women and marginalized will ensure participation in governance and development which will further lead to a qualitative change in inclusiveness of our grassroots governance and development by replacing the age old feudal, casteist and patriarchal dominance in villages. But the current election practices are a hindrance to the poor and marginalized people get access to democratic process and rightful participation in decision making.
The persistent economic and social structure in the village is dominated by land owning upper caste male members. The poor and marginalized voters have economic dependency on the land owning dominant communities of the village as bonded labour, wage labour and sharecroppers. Untouchability practice and caste and gender based discrimination are still prevalent in social life. The economic activities, business, trade and institutional service delivery work are mostly under the control of the dominant caste of the village.
There are undeclared caste councils, khab panchayats, backed by patronization of political party leaders. Unequal social system does not respect democratic culture and constitutional values. The prevailing socio-economic bondage in rural areas must be abolished to ensure political democracy.
Just by making provisions of reservation for women and marginalized section is not enough to ensure their participation in local governance and development process unless our socio –cultural and socio-economic hegemonic structures are not conducive for their free participation. legal provisions must be baked by public awareness about democratic values to build democracy and rule of law. Along with adequate protection it has been suggested for State funding of elections to help the candidates of the poor and marginalized sections participate without depending on dominant forces or ruling political parties for funding.
State funding of elections has been in practice in many democratic countries of the world. It is also suggested that the political parties must adopt reservation in their own party structure at different levels to include women, SC, ST and OBC in leadership position and decision making bodies.
The political parties must follow internal party democracy and must have a transparent candidate selection process based on principles and policy of the parties rather than leaving it to local influential people to decide on behalf of the party.
The high command culture must be replaced with democratic decision making process. The political parties must be the models of democratic reform for inclusive democracy to be followed by the voters. The Government must invest on political education, citizenship, voter awareness and build a sense of political responsibilities with voters to elect right candidate without fear and influence.
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