APYC rakes up panchayat polls 'delay'

Our Correspondent

Itanagar, April 13: Taking serious note of the delaying tactics allegedly adopted by the BJP Government towards conducting panchayat election in the State, the Arunachal Pradesh Youth Congress (APYC) has called upon the State Governor to intervene in the matter and pass instruction to the Government to issue notification to hold the election by May 2018.

APYC president Geli Ete in a statement today accused the Government of delaying the panchayat election in the State.

“It’s nothing but an act of buying time to serve their leaders’ vested interest,” he said.

The five-year tenure of PRIs is completing next month but the Government has failed to issue the election notification on time, thereby violating the Article 243(B) and 243(E) of the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992, lamented the Youth Congress leader.

Notably, the State Assembly had passed ‘The Arunachal Pradesh Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill 2018’ last month to do away with the Anchal Samiti, the intermediate level of three-tier Panchayati Raj system, and instead set up a two-tier PR system in the State.

Alleging that the BJP Government is planning to keep the panchayat bodies in ‘death position’ for their selfish interest and to curtail grassroots democracy as well as peoples’ rights, Ete said, keeping the PRIs in death position will not only incur loss of 592.75 crore to the State from the head of 14th FC but also violation of the Panchayat Raj Act.

Stating that drastic change from three to two-tier PR system would bring ‘disaster’ to the people of State, the APYC chief claimed, the change would be meaningless until and unless Government delegates the financial and administrative power to the PR bodies and allow them to act independently.

Further, claiming that as per Election Commission of India letter to the State Government, the date of notification for PR election notification is April 13 this year, the Youth Congress reiterated to the Governor to personally intervene and pass necessary instruction to the Government for early publication of notification, besides providing financial aid and manpower to the State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct the panchayat election to uphold grass-root democracy.