PANAJI: The Congress party on Saturday hit out at the State government for seeking to quell the voice of the people by amending the gram sabha rules to disallow discussions of issues that are not listed on the agenda.
Addressing a press conference, Congress General Secretary Yatish Naik said that the government’s decision to include the clause that “no subject be discussed in such meeting besides the agenda as approved by the gram sabha” was an attempt to stifle the voices of the gram sabhas which were exposing the government on issues like coal, RP, PDA, nationalisation of rivers and economy. “This is an anti-democratic, high-handed and contemptible decision of the government to suppress the civil liberties and freedom of the people. It is very clear that the government wants to silence the gram sabhas. We condemn this and demand that it be withdrawn immediately,” Naik said, adding that the party has written to the Director of Panchayats within the stipulated time period of fifteen days that the Director offered for inputs in the form of objections and suggestions to the newly amended rules.
“The administration should and ought to make every effort to encourage healthy discussions at the gram sabhas so as to facilitate participative decision making on all subjects pertaining to the role and functions of the institution of village panchayats. The endeavour of the government ought to be to promote healthy dialogue, debate and discussion vis-a-vis the development and progress of our villages… buy recognizing the spirit enshrined in the theory of devolution of powers,” Naik said.
“Efforts to prohibit discussion by inserting an unwanted hyper-technical clause is undoubtedly intended to weaken the institution of gram sabhas and could be construed as a measure to dissuade and discourage the people from raising subjects and issues, which is most unhealthy in a participative democratic set up,” Naik said in his memorandum to the Director of Panchayats. Naik said that the Congress party will wait for the Director of Panchayats to act and withdraw the amended rules and, if not, will take the next course of action.
