the goan I network
PANAJI
The ongoing process of the Zilla Panchayat elections scheduled to be held on March 22 has evoked a lukewarm response from contestants despite it being allowed to be fought on party lines with just about a dozen nominations having been filed thus far for the 50 seats in the two districts.
The leadership in most political parties, including the principal Opposition party - Indian National Congress - and to some extent even the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has admitted facing reluctance from their cadres to claim the party tickets.
The Zilla Panchayat is a district-level body and the second tier of the Panchayati Raj system in Goa above the village panchayat. The two tiers, however, function independently of each other, but the former has very little scope of work and few powers devolved to it. One major reason why finding candidates to be pitted in the elections is become difficult is because of the reservations for the various categories particularly for scheduled tribes, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and sub-categories such as OBC women, a top leader of the ruling BJP said, adding that with very few powers the ZP body holds little lustre if any for aspiring politicians from their party ranks.
“Individuals in the party aiming to compete for the prized Assembly ticket are also hesitant to volunteer because they fear sitting legislators could conspire to defeat them to kill competition,” the leader confided.
Currently, ZPs have insignificant scope of work, limited to minor work of building and repairs of nullahs, small internal roads and drains.
Several past ZP members, including some current legislators including Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar, former minister Jayesh Salgaonkar, Cuncolim MLA Clafasio Dias among others were in the forefront demanding greater powers to the District-level panchayat body when they held that office. Strangely, however, they failed to pursue the cause of devolution of more powers to the ZP once they graduate to the legislative assembly, apparently fearing loss of influence at the local level in their respective constituencies.
