The State government continued its annual tradition of creating chaos regarding reservations causing delay in holding the polls. In fact the government brought this situation on itself. The prime question was whom to give the charge of working on the reservations! Some political experts constantly demanded that the work should be handled by an independent entity such as the Election Commission. This demand gained weightage especially after the way polls were held in 2017. However, some pro-government people were also of the opinion that the right to allot reservations should stay with the government. Needless to say, those who wanted the reservation rights to stay with the government were political personalities.
Despite all the debate, the government had to consider the demand and at the last minute, handed over the reservation work to the Goa Election Commission in February when polls were just around the corner (June). The EC had but three months to finish the gigantic task, which they did. The government, as expected, took their time to approve the re-structured list of reservations and also to announce the elections. The arguments over reservations in relation to OBC were started by political leaders themselves. In fact, the ruling BJP openly expressed its disappointment over the recent revamp. One thing to note here is that the EC carried out its work based on the statistical data provided by the government which proves that the independent body stayed well within its rights. BJP MLA Ganesh Gaonkar openly vocalised how the work should be taken away from EC and returned to the government. How must one react to this never-ending political debate?
Nevertheless, the decision to hand over this complex work to EC should be welcomed especially after witnessing the scepticism showcased by the political fraternity. There have been difficulties reported while accepting the nomination forms. The question revolved around conflict of interest regarding accepting or rejecting the nomination forms. The subject falls under jurisdiction of Sections 9, 10 and 11 of Panchayati Raj. Specifically, a candidate who is given a contract of collecting the Sopo tax; should his nomination be considered valid to contest elections or should his nomination be rejected? As per the Section 10 (F) the candidacy should be considered invalid but the right to decide on the invalidity is with Goa Election Commission according to Section 11. Then, how can the election officer reject his nomination in the first place? There is a provision for that in Section 9 but it is not clear. There is a need to bring more clarity in the section and the government’s think tank should be put to work. Few years back a question arose whether Corporation’s employees are eligible to contest elections. The Sections 10 (C) and (G) prevents them from contesting polls and yet, nominations of some were accepted as there was not enough clarity. The government later resolved the issue by omitting few offices (positions of benefit). There are more questions which have become visible in recent years, one of which is the motion of no confidence against sarpanch. The no confidence vote was taken on just the ninth day of the sarpanch being elected to the post at Old Goa panchayat not many years ago. No reasons were mentioned in the notice as the sarpanch had not even started the work. So, how has that sarpanch lost the confidence of its fellow panch members? The compulsion to state valid reasons while notifying no confidence motion should be a mandate.
In some of the panchayats, male candidates do not even allow female candidates to rise to the post which is theirs by constitution. The efforts by male candidates to delay the elections is astounding. Some of the women candidates are not proposed by anyone which becomes an issue while filling out the nomination. The similar incident had taken place in Boma and one of the panchayats in Bardez. This signals the need towards immediate rectification in the law.
