PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/ Dehradun
Reacting strongly to the notification of three tier Panchayat elections in the 12 districts of the State released on Saturday, the Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Yashpal Arya has said that the BJP government in Uttarakhand has destroyed the constitutional concept of Panchayati Raj. He said that the government neither followed the provisions mentioned in the Panchayati Raj Act nor the orders of the Supreme Court and High Court while deciding reservation in the Panchayati Raj bodies.
Arya said that on Friday, the Advocate General of the State government had assured the High Court that he would give a reply on behalf of the government in the court within three days on the anomalies in reservation. “The assurance of the Advocate General in the court is the assurance of the government but instead of fulfilling its assurance, the government has issued a notification for three-tier elections in the State,’’ he said.
The LoP said that in 2016, the Congress government had made a provision in the Uttarakhand Panchayati Raj act to give representation to every category in the Panchayats by implementing the three-tier Panchayat reservation process through a system of rotation. He added that as per the Verma Commission’s report in the wake of the Supreme Court’s directions on reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in Panchayats, the OBC reservation should be determined in the first phase, but the process of reservation for other categories should be done on the basis of rotation in the second phase.
Arya said that due to this absurd decision, the same seats have been reserved for the same category for the third or fourth time.
The LoP said that in deciding the reservation, the government had to give reservation to the OBC from zero by carrying forward the old roster as per the order of the Supreme Court, but the government has decided a different formula for every level of Panchayats, which is unconstitutional.
Arya said that the basic spirit of the constitutional reforms related to Panchayati Raj by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was that every section of society should get representation as per the roster but in Uttarakhand, the government has torn this spirit to shreds to benefit some people.
