RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh will soon take a decision on whether to hold simultaneous polls for the urban bodies and a 3-tier panchayat in the state, following the recommendation of the committee constituted under the chairmanship of a senior IAS officer Richa Sharma.
A five-member committee, which was constituted on 08 August, has submitted its report to the state government. If sources close to the development are to be believed, the recommendations are in consonance with the formula of one state-one election being worked out by the Vishnu Deo Sai government.
It is asserted that holding simultaneous polls will carry the benefit of a reduction in the conducting elections, ease the burden on state administrative machinery and focus more on governance as repeated election mode obstructs policy implementation.
“We have received the report from the committee and soon the government will arrive at a decision on it”, said Arun Sao, deputy chief minister. The ruling BJP is keen on simultaneous elections based on the ‘one nations-one election’ theme, but a consensus is yet to arrive among the political parties in Chhattisgarh.
The Congress objected to conducting the urban bodies and panchayat polls simultaneously as “impractical” alleging that the BJP is supporting the plan to gain political advantage out of it.
Speculations were rife that the election schedule for urban bodies and panchayats is likely to be declared in November. The last elections to the municipal bodies were held in November 2019 and the Panchayats in January-February 2020.
There are 184 urban bodies and 11,777 three-tier panchayats in the state.
Political experts believe that conducting simultaneous polls to the urban bodies and the panchayats is not a big deal, but the election commission has to accomplish a strong mechanism for ensuring free, fair and impartial polls with effective security in place.
“With elections held at short intervals, the government functionaries including the ministers get more engaged in the polls rather than carrying out their official responsibilities. The repeated elections in a span of little over a year led to the frequent imposition of model code of conduct and government’s roles and functioning halts”, said Shashank Sharma, a political commentator familiar with state politics.
In Chhattisgarh there are 14 municipal corporations, 48 municipalities and 122 nagar panchayats. Similarly there are 27 zilla panchayats, 146 janpad panchayats and over 11600 gram panchayats.
Chhattisgarh usually witnesses multiple elections beginning from assembly to Lok Sabha followed by municipal bodies and panchayats leading to over 300 days in a year virtually consumed by polls.