PANJIM: Hours after Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho said that file pertaining to fixing of dates and reservations of Zilla Panchayat elections has been sent to State Election Commission (SEC), Congress questioned under which provisions of law the SEC will take up the said process.
In a statement issued here, Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat and Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Girish Chodankar raised doubts that the government would hold the Zilla Panchayat elections in free and fair manner. “Panchayat minister should explain under which provisions of law the SEC can take up the work,” Kamat said.
The party claimed that the “match fixing tactics of BJP government stands exposed” from the statement of the panchayat minister that the file is sent to SEC for ‘fixing’ dates and reservations of constituencies for ZP polls.
“The government has not given any powers to the SEC to do the reservations. If the government was clear, in the last assembly session, they would have amended the Act empowering the SEC,” Kamat said. Condemning the government for deliberately delaying the process to “create confusions”, he demand a level playing field.
Meanwhile, Chodankar said that the BJP “is fully aware of its imminent defeat” in the ZP polls and hence is trying to play foul.
“We demand that the elections should be held with equal opportunity to all the candidates. There is no point in holding elections by adopting unfair practices. The spirit of democracy itself will get killed if such things take place,” Chodankar warned.
