PANJIM: A lot of concern has started brewing in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the inept handling of the general panchayat elections after the High Court of Bombay at Goa directed the government to declare the date to hold polls within next three days.
There is disquiet among BJP grass-root workers who are now concerned about the manner in which the party leaders handled the whole issue of panchayat polls since last month. These workers are completely disappointed in the manner in which draftsmen and junior stenographers are appointed as Administrators in most of the 175 village panchayats after the five-year term of village panchayats ended on June 19.
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In many village panchayats, the administrators are yet to assume charge while the government asked them to hold special gram sabhas. The workers feel that despite retaining power after Assembly elections, the party appeared to be running away from panchayat polls.
Meanwhile in some panchayats, gram sabhas are being held and panchayats secretaries are calling meeting, even when after their panchayat term has ended. In Merces, it is learnt that the panchayat secretary has called for meeting, where important decisions are expected to be taken when even the administrator has not taken charge.
Two years ago, the BJP government had postponed Zilla Panchayat (ZP) elections in view of spike in COVID-19 cases and suddenly announced the poll date taking everybody by surprise.
Though the panchayats elections are not fought on party lines yet high-stakes battles are not ruled out in the State.
A senior party functionary told Herald that he had cautioned the leaders that elections for local self-bodies cannot be postponed and to hold them as per schedule. But it fell on their deaf ears and handled the entire issue ineptly. According to him, the party tried to capitalise on the Supreme Court verdict on the triple test to reserve wards for OBC communities and even allegedly pressurised the State Election Commission (SEC) even after an independent person was appointed as SEC following Apex Court directives.
“I knew then that this would not impress the High Court, the Supreme Court or any Court. And the government has faced this. This was bound to happen”, said the senior BJP functionary.
