The ongoing Zilla Panchayat election process, polling for which is slotted for March 22, is undoubtedly the flavour in Goa’s political arena, if you discount the rhetorical cacophony which politicos are dishing out these days on the Mhadei imbroglio, that is. What then is the significance of this election, which covers nearly 3/4ths of Goa’s landscape, both political and geographical? Barring the jurisdictions of the 11 civic bodies, the electorate registered in all of the 191 panchayats will participate in the process. But apart from the right to exercise their vote on Sunday, March 22, the people have little, if any, say or benefit of the governance by these district-level top tier of the Panchayati Raj system and it has hardly come to represent in the two decades since its inception what it was meant to -- grassroot democracy. Instead, it is clinging on to the top of the State’s democratic polity, as the State-level politicians obstinately refuse to decentralize power and yield turf to the grassroot politicians, writes ASHLEY DO ROSARIO.
zillas are without powers, but they are...launchpads for future MLAs
The ongoing Zilla Panchayat election process, polling for which is slotted for March 22, is undoubtedly the flavour in Goa’s political arena, if you discount the rhetorical cacophony which politicos are dishing out these days on the Mhadei imbroglio, that is. What then is the significance of this election, which covers nearly 3/4ths of Goa’s landscape, both political and geographical? Barring the jurisdictions of the 11 civic bodies, the electorate registered in all of the 191 panchayats will participate in the process. But apart from the right to exercise their vote on Sunday, March 22, the people have little, if any, say or benefit of the governance by these district-level top tier of the Panchayati Raj system and it has hardly come to represent in the two decades since its inception what it was meant to -- grassroot democracy. Instead, it is clinging on to the top of the State’s democratic polity, as the State-level politicians obstinately refuse to decentralize power and yield turf to the grassroot politicians, writes ASHLEY DO ROSARIO.
