SAD demarcating rural wards for political benefit, Cong tells Guv
Thursday, 17/01/2013
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130117/punjab.htm#7
Chandigarh,: The Punjab Congress today submitted a memorandum to Governor Shivraj Patil stating that the SAD-BJP government was demarcating wards within gram panchayats with an aim of benefitting candidates of the ruling alliance in the forthcoming rural elections.
In the memorandum, party leaders Jeetmohinder Singh Sidhu and Sukhpal Khaira said earlier the ruling alliance had got the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act amended solely for "a political motive to capture the gram panchayats".
The memorandum alleged the government was threatening the democratic spirit and misusing the process of law by creating new panchayats in a fraudulent manner by keeping the elected representatives belonging to the opposition in the dark. It said even the natural principal of contiguity had been flouted with houses from different areas being cut, copied and pasted in a particular ward at the whims and fancies of the jathedar's of the villages concerned.
They said the list of proposed wards was never displayed either at the village or at the sub-division level to allow the general public to file objections. They alleged Food and Civil Supplies Minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon had exerted undue political pressure to withhold notification in three blocks of the Patti assembly constituency.
‘Negative propaganda by Congress’
Reacting to the issue, the SAD said a negative propaganda was being unleashed by the Congress against the creation of new gram panchayats which was done solely for the purpose of the smooth conduct of panchayat elections.
SAD spokesman Daljeet Singh Cheema said it was strange that the Punjab Congress was complaining about the delimitation of wards knowing well that the election of the sarpanch was a direct election in which all voters of the village participated. The creation of wards would have no bearing on the outcome of the election, he said, adding when the elections of sarpanch and other panchayat members were not contested on party symbol, the question of favouritism and manipulation did not arise.
