Don’t politicise gram panchayat issue: KSE

Eshwarappa says Opposition making false allegations

Appealing to the Opposition parties to desist from politicising the issue of nominating administrative committees to gram panchayats, K.S. Eshwarappa, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, has said that, without yielding to any political pressure, the State government would take a final call on the issue by considering the opinion of legal experts.

“Neither the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership nor our MLAs have pressured the State government to form administrative committees. The BJP leadership as well as the State government want the election to gram panchayats to be held. However, owing to the present COVID-19 situation, it is practically difficult. Unfortunately, the Opposition leaders were levelling false allegations that the BJP government was trying to postpone the election deliberately,” he said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

He said that the State government has told the State Election Commission about the difficulties. As the terms of the incumbent members of gram panchayats would end shortly, there was three options before the State government: to extend the tenure of the incumbent members, to appoint bureaucrats as administrators or to form administrative committees to run the gram panchayats. He said that there was provision in the existing laws to appoint administrative committees. The forthcoming meeting of the State Cabinet would take a decision in this regard, he said.

Brushing aside the apprehensions from Opposition leaders of nepotism in nominating members for the administrative committees, he said that the responsibility of formation of the committees would be entrusted to the respective Deputy Commissioners and due measures would be taken to maintain transparency in the process. The nomination to the committees would be made as per the reservation norms, he said and added that the committees so formed would be an ad hoc arrangement and their validity would end as soon as the election is declared for gram panchayats.