Says gram sabhas have powers to decide on development
TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Already at loggerheads with the government over the powers of gram sabhas, Goa’s Church body Wednesday alleged that there was massive rigging witnessed during the recent panchayat elections.
“We had elections last year; we also saw massive rigging,” Soter D’Souza, executive coordinator of Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP), the church’s social arm alleged at a press briefing at Azad Maidan Wednesday during a function held to celebrate 20 years of Goa Panchayati Raj Act.
He also said that the council was firm that the whole election process right from delimitation had to be handled by State Election Commission instead of some bureaucrats.
“The whole election process from delimitation of wards till the final counting and declaration of results should be given to the State Election Commission,” he said.
With regards to the Regional Plan 2021, the CSJP has demanded to consider opinion of gram sabhas during the decision making process. “We have the right of opinion…If gram sabhas are not taken into account; it will be termed as illegal. Villagers should be consulted because they know what is better for their village and not the bureaucrats or outsiders,” D’Souza said.
The CSJP also insisted that it was the gram sabhas that indeed had the powers to decide on development in their villages ~ but that also included the panchayat members as well as the zilla parishads.
“There are 29 subjects that panchayats can decide on… and construction is one of them,” he said in a sharp rebuttal to the government position on the issue.
Soter said that it was the villagers that would look after the water and the land and so it was they who should decide what to do with it and not the TCP department.
He also alleged that the government was spending crores of rupees on water management while on the other hand forests were being cut down and there was no involvement of the people.
On disputes involving panchayats, the Church body suggested that an ombudsman, who was a retired Judge of High Court of good repute, should be appointed to hear and make unbiased decisions on disputes between villagers, panchayats and local bodies.
“All disputes arising in the panchayats should be dealt with by a separate ombudsman or tribunal or commission which should be headed by a reputed retired judge of High Court…” he said.
The CSJP also alleged that allegations of corruption being faced by the panchayats were not necessarily true and many times gram sabhas were hijacked by the persons backed by MLAs and local sarpanchas.
CSJP is upset with the government, especially with the present ruling, alleging that the divide and rule agenda was being adopted to create a rift among the elected representatives and common people.
Members have condemned the government for criticizing the gram sabhas and demoralizing it.
D’Souza also expressed his disappointment at the past and present governments for failing to educate the masses of Goa on the Act.
“Both Congress and BJP governments in the last 20 years never created awareness among the people on their panchayat rights… We are least bothered of any political party, the biggest political party is gram sabhas,” he said.
BJP not responsible for poll ‘rigging’: Parsekar
PANJIM: While responding to the allegations of the CSJP, Panchayat Minister Laxmikant Parsekar told Herald that elections had to be conducted by April 18, 2012, as the term of the panchayats was ending and all preparations had been done by the previous government.
“As such, allegations of mischief should be (attributed) to previous government. We barely got one month to conduct the elections,” Parsekar said, in response to allegations of rigging of panchayat elections by CSJP.
He also said that the State Election Commissioner would be entrusted of not “just conducting elections, but even assigned the task of delimitation.”
“We need to move an amendment… I intend to do that,” Parsekar said.
