ROURKELA: Despite Rourkela Municipality’s elevation to Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) in 2014, the city has been without an elected council for more than a decade. The Sundargarh district administration has been acting as a proxy, creating a void in democratic representation, much to the chagrin of the residents. The last election to the erstwhile municipality was held in 2008 and election to the civic body is due since August 2013.
The upgrade to RMC in 2014, incorporating Jagda and parts of Jhartarang Gram Panchayats, increased the wards from 33 to 40. However, legal challenges, including tribal opposition filed in the Odisha High Court in 2015, led to stay orders on elections.In November 2021, the former chairman of the erstwhile Rourkela Municipality Nihar Ray filed a writ petition in the high court stating if formation of the RMC was challenged by the tribal petitioners, the government should hold election for 33 old wards treating the RMC as municipality.
Replying to the notice of the OHC, the government, citing the stay orders said the matter is sub-judice and hence election cannot be held, Ray said, alleging that the government is deliberately not holding election either to the RMC or municipality to unethically keep control of the civic body.The State Election Commission (SEC) has failed to discharge its statutory and constitutional obligation to conduct election, depriving the city residents of their democratic right for election, he further stated.
In the absence of an elected council, the Sundargarh collector is acting as the RMC administrator and the commissioner. The city denizens have no say in functioning of the RMC in absence of elected mayor and corporators and the RMC authorities feel no pressure from the public to perform. To make up for the absence of elected corporators, the RMC has appointed 40 ward officers, but the arrangement has failed to make any impact, sources said.
Incidentally, as per the 2011 census the RMC has 25,588 tribals of the total 3.09 lakh population and only a few handful of the tribal population is opposing the formation of the RMC. Former Rourkela MLA Pravat Mohapatra said if the government had followed due procedures in RMC formation there would not have been any difficulty in vacating the stay orders. “The delay in elections seems to align with the ruling BJD’s interests,” he stated.