Let’s play fair

Delimitation process needs to be completed well in advance

| MAY 26, 2017, 04:14 AM IST
The intervention of the Bombay High Court to undo delimitation and reservations of wards in a handful of panchayats barely days ahead of the elections is an eye opener. The court’s decision is significant on several different levels. On one level, the HC’s decision to ‘stay’ several notifications issued by the Directorate of Panchayats is vindication and official acknowledgement of the allegations that the reservation of wards is in many cases arbitrary, haphazard and, as high court orders have proved, outrightly malicious.
The modus operandi is simple: In order to scuttle the plans of a political opponent from contesting all the ruling party or legislator needs to do is ensure that the ward he intends to contest from is either reserved for women, or the backward classes or if not, the delimitation of the ward is warped in such a way that his voters and base no longer fall in that ward.
To make matters worse, the state government ensures that the delimitation is done at the last minute, thereby ensuring that any dissent is stifled and ignored citing the fact that the election process is already on; that any changes will spur the demand for even more changes; that there is too little time to make changes and other similar reasons. The entire saga smells of deliberate machinations by the government in a bid to steamroll their preferred version of grassroot level political equations. This is a dangerous precedent. One of the few things that maintains social cohesion is faith in the political and electoral systems. The people need to believe that the system is fair and working for them. Lose that, and we could be heading down a dangerous and unpredictable road -- one taken by banana republics.
The Directorate of Panchayats, which conducts the delimitation process should take a leaf out of the Election Commission of India’s book. For the Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections the ECI completes the process often years in advance, ensuring that the election process is above board.
It is imperative that the state government ensures that the delimitation process for the panchayat polls is completed well in advance -- as many as six months in advance in order that the many issues can be ironed out.
What’s even more troubling is that the High Court’s orders could leave an ever larger section of people aggrieved. There are allegations of irregularity in more than just a few panchayats in the state. Not all of them have approached the High Court to seek redressal of their grievances allowing the grievance to persist. Not only should the elections be fair, they should also be seen to be fair. Let us prove that we can rise above such petty machinations.

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