Jammu, Apr 23: Taking on the Government of India and the state government for their hypocritical role in denying powers to Panchayats and deactivating urban local bodies Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed on Monday said the year old Panchayat elections have been turned into a mere publicity reference.
 “Both Government of India and the state government have been paying only lip service to the cause of empowerment and in the process have robbed the institutions of self governance of their credibility and potential for change” he said in a statement.
 He said Congress and NC are in coalition both at the center and in the state and can’t run away from their responsibility by blaming each other. He said while Congress was instrumental in empowering Panchayats in rest of the country they are resorting to double standards in JK by being part of the resistance to change.
 Mufti said on the one hand the government of India honors select officials for holding elections to the Panchayats in the state and on the other it has colluded with the state government to deny the thousands of Panchs and Sarpanchs the powers that the constitution has granted them all over the country. “The real heroes of the exercise including the 80 per cent voters who elected the Panchayat members and the field level officers who worked day and night in conducting elections, all have been humiliated in an exceptionally insensitive choice of recipients of the medals, while rendering the Panchayats as mere show pieces used only to distort the discourse about empowerment of the people” he said.
 The PDP patron said the constituent parties of the coalition were engaged in a mock war of words over the devolution of powers to Panchayats with both Congress and National Conference reluctant to share power at the village level with the people who are the real stakeholders in development process. “They are trying to hoodwink people through statements that have lost validity. They have failed to hold block and district level elections or releasing remuneration to Panchayat members” Mufti said while pointing out that the ruling coalition it seemed had only one limited goal of holding elections to the four seats of legislative council to fill them up through their favorites in the name of Panchayat representation. “The coalition partners are subverting the institutions for petty partisan interests” he said.
 Referring to the delay in holding elections to the urban local bodies Mufti said spurious reasons were confected to continue the status quo. These elections were due in February 2010 and even after more than two years the government is in no mood to conduct these elections any time soon, he said and asked why these were delayed so long? He said the only reason for killing the municipal institutions was for the ruling parties to misuse the civic space for pushing the personal agendas of their leaders and ministers. “They want to control municipalities through favorite officials for making backdoor entries in thousands and also making money by promoting illegal constructions converting urban areas into virtual slums” he said. 

Lastupdate on : Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST