The state government has approved the proposal for the amendment in the rules pertaining to the reservation of seats and allotment of wards for the elections for the post of village pradhan and village council. The law department has also approved the proposal for the 10th amendment in the rules pertaining to reservation and it’s likely to be approved by the cabinet through rotation within this week.
As soon as the amendment to rules is approved by the cabinet the poll schedule for the election of the Gram Pradhan would also be announced. The elections are likely to be held in December.
This will be for the first time in 25 years history of panchayat elections in the state after the 73 rd amendment in constitution in 1993 that there be two set of rules for reservation and allotment of seats and wards—one for the Gram pradhan and other for the block development committee and member district panchyat.
As per the 73rd constitution amendment the reservation of posts and allotment of wards in all three tiers of panchayats is rotated every fifth year. This result in seats and wards reserved for SC going to OBCs and OBCs turning general category seat after every five year. With the amendment in rules the reservation of seats for the last 4 elections to this post since 1995 will be declared null and void.
The amendment in rules fulfills the political objective of the Samajwadi party government as the government favours to maintain status quo and retain the list of the villages where the post of Village pradhan was reserved for the OBCs in 2010 panchayat elections. With this objective the state government has had deferred the process of reservation and allotment of wards for the village panchayats till further orders on September 5.
The amendment in rules for Gram Pradhan however comes as a big jolt for the general category candidate who were confident that as per the rotation rules their village will be dereserved.
Meanwhile the State Election Commission has decided to prepare the data base of each state employee to be deployed for the poll and related duty. The SEC has prepared software where name, address phone number of each employee posted at polling booth will be available with the commission. ``This will enable us to maintain a close watch on the elections till the level of the pooling booth and effective action in case of any irregularity and complaint received by the Commission’’, said an SEC official.
The BJP taking exception to the alleged irregularities in panchayat elections has questioned the rationale of deferring the election of the village pradhan. ``The SP government is indulging in irregularities in panchayat elections in a big way, be it the revision of rolls, delimitation or the reservation of posts. If the Samajwadi party wants to win the panchayat election without contesting it then instead of conducting the tiresome and costly process of holding elections, the SP led state government should nominated its own leaders and supporters in all three tiers of the panchayat bodies’’, said HN Dikshit, leader of the BJP in state legislative council.
Meanwhile the official sources said the Center in view of the Bihar state assembly elections in October has declined to provide additional companies of the Central para military forces to the state for panchayat elections. The state government has decided to conduct the elections from its own resources by deploying the Jawans of home guards, PRD and village chowkidars.