TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: The South Goa Zilla Panchayat on Tuesday strongly condemned the parents who were opposed to the admission for the HIV+ children in the school at Rivona village.
On the Rivona school admission controversy, the ZP members in one voice opposed the parents for demanding denial of admissions for the HIV+ children. “The law does not allow any discrimination against HIV+ children. The law of the land should prevail at the Rivona school,” ZP Chairperson Nelly Rodrigues said.
The ZP also strongly opposed the government’s move to hold panchayat polls under the banner of political parties, even as the five BJP-backed members struck a dissent note, supporting elections on party lines.
The resolution opposing the government move to hold election on party lines was adopted by 10-5 votes. It has been decided to send the resolution to the government at the earliest.
Nelly said that the proposed move to hold elections to the Panchayat bodies is against the letter and spirit of the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution. “Panchayat bodies are local self government and autonomous bodies. Holding elections for these bodies will vitiate the atmosphere. Political parties will seek to implement their own agenda when these local self government bodies are supposed to run without political interference”, Nelly said, adding that instead of holding election on party lines, the government should arm the local self government bodies with powers and functions envisaged under the constitution.
When the resolution as put for voting, the BJP-backed members — Vice Chairperson Navnath Naik, Aparna Naik, Krishna Velip, Domnick Gaonkar and Pradeep Desai voted in favour of panchayat polls on party lines, while 10 members led by Nelly opposed the move.
The ZP members lamented that the government has failed to devolve powers and functions to the district Zilla Panchayats. They demanded that the government devolves the powers and functions envisagd under the Constitution before current term of the present ZP body ends in March 2015.
