Shinde govt’s direct election move a strike at Congress, NCP hold on grass-roots | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
Coop network helps Cong, NCP retain support in local bodies; Fadnavis says direct election will help transparency.
BY REVERSING an MVA government decision and going in for direct election to heads of local bodies, the Eknath Shinde-led government has its eye on politics at the grass-root level where the Congress and NCP continue to have a hold.
The coalition government of the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and BJP announced last week that presidents of nagar panchayats and nagar parishads, and sarpanchs of gram panchayats, will be elected directly, instead of by members of the respective local bodies.
The BJP-Sena government led by Devendra Fadnavis had in 2018 first announced direct election to these bodies, overruling protests by the Congress and NCP. When the MVA government came in a year later, it had reversed this.
With 45% of its population urban, Maharashtra has 28 municipal corporations and 226 municipal councils. In the rural area, there are zilla parishads, gram samitis, and gram panchayats – 34 Zilla Parishad , 351 samitis and 28,813 panchayats in all. Elections to the local bodies, held every five years, are due this year.
Defending direct election to grass-root bodies, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said it would bring “transparency and accountability”. “When people directly elect their sarpanch, it helps unite villagers… When such decisions had been left to a handful of elected members in a panchayat, it led to sharp polarisation and bitter politics. Such enmity at grass-root level hampers development in villages,” he said.
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