Puducherry govt. trying to delay local body elections: former MP
The Hindu
Ramadass suspects that Sasidharan Commission is being used as a devise to postpone polls
The reported recommendation by Justice Sasidharan Commission to conduct a comprehensive door-to- door survey to ascertain the backwardness in the urban and rural areas of the Union Territory was considered as yet another attempt to delay the local body elections, former Member of Parliament M. Ramadass said on Tuesday.
The Madras High Court in 2021 directed the Union Territory administration to hold local body elections after reserving seats for Other Backward Classes. In the same year on December 17, the government appointed Justice Sasidharan to ascertain the proportion of OBC population ward wise. The Commission was mandated to submit a report on or before June, 2022, the economist-turned-politician said.
“The Commission did not complete its work within the stipulated time. What is worse, after consuming 13 months, it discovers now that a door-to-door survey of households has to be done for which the Lieutenant Governor has given the approval without even gently asking the Commission why it has taken 13 months. The plain implication is that the local body elections will not be held in the next two to three years,” he said.
The Commission should have engaged the services of the sociology or anthropology department of Pondicherry Central University or some reputed research institutes in Puducherry or Tamil Nadu to conduct the household survey, analyse the data and provide the proportion of backwardness ward wise, he added.
“The work performance of the Commission makes one to presume that it is used as a device to legally postpone the local polls and sub serve the desire of the Chief Minister to scuttle setting up of local bodies. He sheds crocodile tears bemoaning that the officers are not cooperating since he doesn’t have powers as the Chief Minister of Union Territory and hence he bats for statehood. He wants power and authority to keep them close to his chest but will not decentralise them to grass root level institutions,” Mr. Ramadass said.
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