BDC polls may be delayed by 4-5 months

Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Oct 22:  The Block Development Council (BDC) elections, which the Government had deferred few days back for amendments to provide reservations to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women, were expected to take at least four to five months to be held afresh after completion of the exercise of reservations and delimitation of the blocks to be reserved for three categories.
Official sources told the Excelsior that though the State Government was in a hurry to hold the first ever election to the BDCs to form second tier of Panchayats, the concerned officials were of the view that it was going to be a time consuming exercise even if the Government decided to issue ordinance for providing reservations to SCs, STs and women instead of waiting for the Legislature session to amend the State Panchayati Raj Act.
They said the Cabinet first had to decided percentage of reservation for SCs, STs and women and reservations for SC women within the women category in 143 blocks for which the elections would be held to elect the chairpersons. A decision on percentage was expected only after the re-opening of Darbar offices in Jammu on November 5.
Sources said the Government would issue an ordinance on providing reservation to SC/STs and women in the BDC polls only after developing a consensus on percentage. Governor NN Vohra had to approve the Government ordinance on reservations. The State Legislature had to approve the ordinance within six months, which can be done in budget session of the Legislature in February-March this year. However, the Government can proceed with the elections after the approval of the ordinance by the Governor while the Legislature can endorse it later.
“Once the percentage issue of reservations to SCs, STs and women besides SC women within the women category was settled, the Rural Development Department had to undertake an extensive exercise across the State to identify the blocks from out of a total of 143, which had to be reserved for SCs, STs and women besides the SC women.
“The exercise to identify the blocks to be reserved for three categories would be undertaken on the basis of population figures of last census. It could be a time consuming process’’, sources said, adding that once the blocks were identified for reserved categories, the Rural Development Department had to publicly invite objections from the people on reservation of blocks.
The public had to be given time fixed in the Act for sending objections on reservation of the blocks. Based on the objections, some reserved blocks could be changed, sources said, adding that after entertaining the objections, the Rural Development Department had to notify the reserved blocks.
Sources said after completion of these formalities, the Rural Development Department would again write to the Election Authority, which happened to be the Chief Electoral Officer under the State Panchayati Raj Act for setting the process of the elections for chairpersons of 143 blocks into motion. The election process could take over a month.
In the schedule announced for the cancelled elections, the process was set into motion on October 3 with the issuance of notification while the election was due to be held on November 7.
The election was to be held for chairpersons of 143 blocks including 77 in Kashmir division and 66 in Jammu province.
The Panchayat elections were held in June-July last year. Entire process of the elections including polling in left out Panchayats had been completed by September last year. However, the process for holding the BDC elections was set into motion after more than a year i.e. in October 2012.
Sources said only when second tier of Panchayats was formed with the election of chairpersons to the BDCs that the process for third tier i.e. the District Development and Planning Boards could be set into motion.

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