MARGAO: Panchayats from Salcete are upset over the manner in which the ongoing delimitation process of village wards are being conducted ahead of the elections for Goa’s 186 panchayats.
The most common response from various panchas across the taluka, which has 30-odd panchayats, is that the process ‘is a mess’.
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In addition to this, panchas are also concerned about what alleged ulterior plans aimed at weakening their vote base by selectively removing or adding voters to their wards. In some cases, panchas may no longer be a voter in their old wards.
However, their biggest complaints revolve around the lack of awareness amongst the public, faulty division of wards and the short deadline.
The former Rachol Sarpanch and present general secretary of the Goa Panchayat Democratic Forum Joseph Vaz conveyed the grievances to the Joint Mamlatdar in this regard.
Vaz and present panch, Vaz said the authorities should have ensured that the panchayat secretaries were involved as they have been appointed by the government itself and it would have been easier to coordinate that way.
“There are many issues. First being, it has been stated that the divisions of wards would be done by geographical boundaries but they have not followed this. Secondly, there is duplication where the same house number is in two wards. Thirdly, there should be uniform division of wards. Finally, the time given for checking and even scrutinising our objections is too less” said Vaz.
Vaz also gave the example of how a family that was in one ward is now put in a ward that is 1.5 km away
and said this will create problems in connectivity and goes against the geographical alignment. There are concerns about how some wards have a very small number of voters while other wards in the same village have a very large number of voters. Panchas said the voter base size in each ward should be proportionate and uniform
“Only House numbers have been shown, which makes it difficult to understand the delimitation published.I had asked to avail a copy of the same, which has been refused and hence an opportunity is missed to contribute to the process. It has to be compared against the election roll to understand changes. It’s open to the public, but citizens with limited understanding of the system will not get the opportunity to get involved,” said Dominic Noronha, Dramapur-Sirlim Biodiversity Management Committee Chairman and former panch.
Celine Furtado, Chandor-Cavorim panch also lamented that there have been a lot of changes to the ward and that it will take a lot of time to check it.
This was the major contention of most panchas that more time is needed. GOACAN had recently called for a further extension of time. Other pancahs said many of the villagers don’t even know about the deadlines or what is happening.
In Curtorim, former ZP Member Santano Rodrigues has used WhatsApp to create awareness amongst the residents about the proposed ward changes.
