Panchayat elections in near future?

Will the State government hold elections to gram panchayats in the near future? A circular issued by the State Election Commission says so, but Opposition parties say this is just a plan of the ruling party to infuse some enthusiasm among the leadership which is growing disillusioned over the diminishing prospects of the party in the next Assembly election.

The SEC has issued a circular No. 177/SEC-PR/2018 on April 19, in which it says the notification as first step towards conduct of ordinary election to gram panchayats will be issued shortly. The circular was issued to guide and facilitate the process of election, especially the procedure to be followed in preparation, printing and publication of gram panchayat electoral rolls.

“How can the government hold election unless the new gram panchayats carved out recently get the legal status published in a gazette,” questioned Adilabad District Congress Committee working president Naresh Jadhav. “This is just a plan of the ruling party to galvanise cadre and leaders at grassroots level who are getting more and more disillusioned over the party’s diminishing prospects in the 2019 Assembly election,” he opined.

The government has already completed the exercise to carve out new gram panchayats in every district. What remains is according some validity to the new entities and preparing electoral rolls for the gram panchayat. The circular essentially talks about preparation, printing and publication of electoral rolls and apportions duties to officials for the same. It creates awareness about the Te-Poll application software developed by the SEC which will aid in the task on hand.

The Te-Poll helps in generation of gram panchayat wise electoral rolls from Assembly constituency electoral rolls. As an additional service, the application software helps in checking the status of a voter in GPER, download voter slip and download of lists by candidates and parties.