The rotation system of sarpanchas and municipal council presidents has not stopped. This week it was Mapusa Municipal Council that elected a new president following a system devised by the councillors whereby the post will be held by a particular councillor for a specified period following which another of them will take over. This system, though having no official sanction, is not illegal and Goa, in the past few years has seen it being followed by quite a few local bodies, especially village panchayats.
While it gives municipal councillors and village panchas the opportunity and the experience of holding the all-important office heading the body, it raises other questions of stability and continuity in the administration of the body.
While this is not restricted to municipal councils, it is far more rampant among panchayats, where besides the rotation system that is being followed in some, in others there are no-confidence motions that are passed against the incumbent forcing him or her out and electing a new sarpanch or deputy. The panchayat elections were held in June last year and before the village bodies could complete even an year, there had already been cases of sarpanchas being replaced. In June last year, the panchayat of Se Old Goa had set a record that other panchayats would perhaps find difficult to break, of moving within 24 hours a no confidence motion against the sarpanch they had elected a day earlier.
Such turmoil of replacing sarpanchas and deputy sarpanchas continued through the months ahead across Goa. Take for instance the taluka of Salcete, where out of 30 panchayats that make up the taluka five saw changes in leadership. While in four village panchayats namely Chinchinim-Deussua, Raia, Carmona and Davorlim-Dicarpale the Sarpanch was changed before the panchayat body completed one year; at Curtorim the Deputy Sarpanch was changed. Besides, the State’s youngest sarpanch from Nagargao village, elected at the age of 21, resigned just recently to pave the way for another to take over.
This constant change in sarpanchas is not news, and had led to the Panchayat Minister last year after the elections warning the bodies not to indulge in the musical chairs game. He had said that the government was considering an amendment to the Panchayati Raj Act to ensure that once elected a Sarpanch remains in office for a specified time – a year or two – that was yet to be decided. That need for that amendment keeps growing and changes in the local bodies keep happening.
This instability in the local governing bodies and the pre-arranged ‘musical chairs’ by which the top post is rotated, is not what was envisaged when power was devolved to the grassroots. The local governing body was never meant to be a playground for musical chairs, but an institution by which the people would participate in the democratic process of governance. That it has been converted into such a playground is unfortunate and this has to be reversed or else there will come a day when the people of Goa will have no confidence in the panchayats. The confidence is already ebbing away, this will hasten the process.
Former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar had once termed the rotation system a ‘tragedy’ pointing out that there was no stability in even a single one of the nine panchayats that make up his constituency. He had ironically said that sarpanchas who complete five years in office should be felicitated, juxtaposing this to the time on the 50th anniversary of Panchayati Raj when he had felicitated sarpanchas who had completed four to five terms in office.
Stability in municipalities and panchayats is important for democracy as it leads to development and accountability. A sarpanch or council chairperson, who is aware that the term is of a very limited period, would not be willing to undertake major projects as he or she would not be in the chair to see the to completion. Development will suffer.
