Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday accused the Congress — led Punjab Government of demolishing the ‘Panchayati Raj’ system, “considered to be the very bedrock of democracy”.
The party’s senior leader and Political Review Committee (PRC) chief Harchand Singh Barsat, Core
Committee member Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal, and Dalbir Singh Dhillon, in a joint statement, alleged that the Government, just like its predecessors the Badals, was all out to rip apart the very fabric of governance owning to overbearing stance of the
elected representatives and bureaucracy.
They said that it was shocking than surprising that even as the elections to Zila Parishads and Block Samitis were held in September 2018, election to elect chairmen were yet to take place.
“So much so, the process to administer the oath of secrecy to the elected members has yet not started which is a murder of democracy and a clever to ploy to do away with the lofty institutions,” they said.
AAP leaders alleged that the ruling Congress legislators were conniving with the “fake” ‘halqa’ in-charge officers whom the people had rejected for obvious reasons, were resorting to interfering in the affairs of panchayats.
Barsat accused the ruling Congress government MLAs, in league with the so-called ‘halqa’ in-charges, of interference in the official work of panchayat samitis in the State, which had led to hamper developmental work in various areas, ending up in groupism among the people in the villages, leaving a large of number of the poor, ‘dalits’ and the families depended on MANREGA.
Dhaliwal and Dhillon demanded that if the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had a semblance of love lost between the democratic institutions and his Government, he should “immediately free the lofty institutions from political interference so that the developmental work is not hampered in the State”.