Ahmedabad: Both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as well as opposition Congress have claimed a landslide victory for themselves in the 1,400 gram panchayat elections in Gujarat. The elections that were held on Sunday recorded a huge turnout although just a tenth of the total 14,017 gram panchayats in Gujarat went to polls in this round.
Months after the high-voltage Assembly elections in which the BJP won by a slender margin, the gram panchayat elections proved to be the next big test for political parties.
The Congress put up a formidable fight in the December 2017 Assembly elections and strengthened its rural vote share to bag 77 seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly. The ruling BJP retained a majority of the urban seats it held prior to the elections and lost several rural seats to see its tally come down to double digits for the first time in two decades.
On the other hand, while gram panchayat polls are not contested on party symbols, candidates are invariably aligned to political parties.
During Monday’s counting, BJP claimed it has won three-fourths of the gram panchayats that went to polls and based its claims on the fact that these panchayats are now directly getting grants in their accounts.
The Congress, too, has claimed victory in about 70 percent of the panchayats that went to polls and said that the issues of Narmada water for irrigation, withdrawal of powers from sarpanchs by the government and no adequate pricing of various farm produce items have angered the villagers.
Speaking to News18, state BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya said that unlike the Congress, the BJP regularly organizes meetings of sarpanchs, which are covered by the media for everyone to see.
“The fact that 214 villages have been declared ‘samras’ is testimony to the fact that villages are accepting the idea floated by the BJP,” he said. Samras villages are those where there are no panchayat elections and villagers unanimously select their sarpanchs and other panchayat members.
Pandya further stated that village panchayats have now begun to get funds under the central and state government schemes that they receive directly in their bank accounts. This has enabled them to spend more effectively on village projects.
When asked how he could claim victory in over 75 percent gram panchayats when the Congress holds a majority of the taluka and district panchayats in the state, Pandya said, “The gram panchayats are generally at loggerheads with the taluka and district panchayats over allocation of funds. Villagers are happy with the government and it is showing in the results.”
Meanwhile, speaking to News18, Congress leader Dr Manish Doshi said, “Our party is in power in 23 of the 33 district panchayats and the Congress won 146 of the 203 taluka panchayat elections held recently. The BJP’s claim that it has won 75 percent of the gram panchayats is completely baseless and untrue.”
Doshi added, to make matters worse, the BJP government has recently announced that the Narmada water will not be made available for irrigation and it has angered the farmers.
Recently, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said that farmers should refrain from sowing summer crops as the availability of Narmada water was such that water could not be provided for irrigation during the summer months.
The Congress spokesperson further stated that issues like non-availability of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops and the government’s withdrawal of powers of sarpanchs has also made the villagers unhappy.
Comments
0 comment