Opposition parties are prevented from even filing Panchayat poll nomination
By Nantoo Banerjee
It may be to the credit of the Indian National Congress and of Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao, who served as the country's ninth prime minister from 1991 to 1996, for taking the initiative to pass the Constitution Amendment (73rd and 74th) Acts. The 73rd Amendment empowered state governments to take steps that would lead to formalisation of the Gram Panchayats and help them operate as units of self-governance. The 74th Amendment introduced a new part namely, Part IXA in the Constitution, which deals with the issues relating to municipalities. The amendments were necessary as the Directive Principles of State Policy, which referred to Village Panchayats, provided no specific reference to municipalities except implicitly in Entry-5 of the State List, which places the subject of Local Self Government as a responsibility of the State. The Entry-5 listed: “Local Government, that is to say, the constitution and powers of municipal corporations, improvement trusts, district boards, mining settlement authorities and other local authorities for the purpose of local self-Government or village administration.” Thus, the constitution amendments were necessary to implement the democratic will of the people of India.
Unfortunately, the two important constitutional amendments seem to have armed ruling parties in states to extend their political network right up to village panchayat levels to exercise political power and indulge in financial corruption from the very grassroots level, making a mockery of Panchayat Raj. The control of Panchayats — by hook or by crook — has become a key agenda of ruling state political parties. Opposition parties and individuals are often physically prevented, brutally attacked and scared away from filing nominations at Panchayat elections. State election commissions are hardly free and fair in conducting these elections.
The ruling political leadership in West Bengal seems to lead its counterparts in other states in the use of muscle power to terrorise opposition candidates out of Panchayat elections to make them contest-free as far as possible. In the 2018 Panchayat elections in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) ruled West Bengal, a record number of over 30 percent of the seats were grabbed by the party without any contest. In many places, panchayat victory helped create ‘loot Raj' by party victors to become ‘crorepatis'. If the ongoing reports of CBI and ED raids in some of the sensitive districts in West Bengal are to be trusted, many village paupers, employed as drivers, personal security guards and servants of Panchayat leaders have become multi-millionaires through the control of the Panchayat system.
Even before a single vote was cast in the 2018 panchayat polls in West Bengal, the election scripted a record as the fate of 34.2 percent seats in the three-tier rural bodies were decided without a contest. The ruling TMC was the only party which was able to field candidates for all the rural body seats. The figures released by West Bengal's State Election Commission also revealed that the fate of 3,059 Panchayat Samiti seats and 203 Zilla Parishad seats were decided in favour of TMC without a contest . This was an all-time record since the first local body elections were held in West Bengal in 1978. In some districts such as Birbhum, the opposition failed to put up a candidate in nearly 90 percent of the seats. Over 50 percent of West Bengal's four other districts were automatically under the TMC fold in the absence of opposition candidates. Birbhum was ruthlessly ruled by TMC's Anubrata Mondal, president of the district Trinamool Congress. Mondal, now in Delhi's Tihar Jail facing multiple charges of corruption, illegal mining and cattle running, was a small-time retail fish trader before the party came to power in the state.
TMC is now getting cornered for the first time since it came to absolute power in West Bengal over 12 years ago in the face of massive corruption charges, including illegal recruitment and auction of government and semi-government jobs, and several of its leaders held under judicial custody. The opposition political parties such as CPI (M), Congress, BJP — TMC's only opposition in the state assembly — and a comparatively new political entrant, Indian Secular Front (ISF), fought pitched battles against TMC hooligans to file nominations for the forthcoming Panchayat elections in several areas, trying to prevent TMC from grabbing seats without contest. ISF was formed before the last state assembly elections by Abbas Siddiqui, an influential cleric of the shrine of Furfura Sharif in the Hooghly district. The party has only one representative in the state assembly.
As the situation develops, the 2023 Panchayat elections in West Bengal could be the bloodiest ever in the history of the country's Panchayat elections. Bombs, bullets and brickbats are used freely to prevent opposition parties from filing nominations at a number of Panchayats. Six people have been killed and scores of campaigners were seriously injured in just three days. In a way, it signals the futility of lofty ideals of the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution, under Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar as its chairman, providing voting right to the people ahead of other important rights such food, shelter, education and job to make the right to life work.
In fact, the 73rd and 74th amendment of the constitution has achieved little to make life and living conditions better and financially self-supporting in rural India under the Panchayat system. Instead, State and Central funds allocated for the purpose have been syphoned out to fatten the pockets of local political masters. Poor village dwellers still live without proper shelters, drinking water, toilets, roads, schools, reliable health centres and honest earning avenues, even 70 years after India's Constitution came into force.
The 74th amendment provided for the constitution of three types of municipalities depending upon the size and area, namely (i) Nagar Panchayat for an area in transition from rural to urban area; (ii) Municipal Council for smaller urban areas; and (iii) Municipal Corporation for larger urban areas. Thanks to the current breed of political masters, they seem to have become hotbeds of corruption, driving out the unemployed youth to urban areas, other states and countries as contract workers. Government doles and contract jobs are given to party workers to ‘purchase' votes. Ruling parties are using muscle power to throttle the democratic process at the grassroots — from filing nominations to balloting. It is high time that leaders of all major political parties come together to take a relook at the Panchayat system and find ways to implement free and fair elections and also fight corruption to make India's grassroots democracy truly meaningful. (IPA Service)
