Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 21: Condemning the State Govt for its policy of delay and deny over elections to Urban Local Bodies, a large number of J&K National Panthers Party activists led by party chairman Harsh Dev Singh staged a protest demonstration at Exhibition Ground here today.
The protestors while raising anti-Govt slogans accused the ‘BJP-PDP alliance’ for safeguarding their political interests at the cost of State’s development.
Addressing the media, Harsh Dev regretted that that the State had been deprived of thousands of crores of rupees for the development of Municipal areas which had been withheld by the Central Govt since 2010 due to the failure of the State Govt to constitute the elected Municipal bodies. He regretted that non- holding of ULB elections due to vested interests of BJP and PDP despite repeated assurances during 2015, 2016 and 2017 had divested the State from development grants for such Municipal bodies which comprised 74 Municipal Committees, 6 Municipal Councils and 2 Municipal Corporations.
He said that with no indication of such elections being held before March 2018, the State was set to lose another hundreds of crores due to political inexpediencies of the sinister alliance. Hailing the Governor for promulgating the J&K Panchayati Raj (Amendment) ordinance, 2017 early this month followed by Govt’s communiqué to the SEC for holding Panchayat elections, he said that similar initiative was required to be taken with regard to Municipal elections which had been delayed by more than seven years.
Since the State Election Commission (SEC) had completed the delimitation exercise in March this year, the elections to Panchayats should be held without further delay and a three-tier framework for Panchayati Raj Institutions put in place to ensure effective participation of the people in the decision-making process”, Harsh Dev stressed.
Ex-MLA Samba, Yash Paul Kundal while referring to the decision of the 14th Finance Commission to enhance the funding for local bodies in the State, pointed out that the said commission had proposed Rs 4161 crore for the state, which included 3117.36 crore for Rural Local Bodies and Rs 1044.51 crore for Urban Local Bodies with a precondition that funds would be released only if elected local bodies were constituted as a measure of democratic decentralization.
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