As reports of panchayat posts being up for sale were emerging across Tamil Nadu, 29-year-old M Sathish Kumar was attacked allegedly for opposing the practice in Sattur Union in Virudhunagar district.
He succumbed to his injuries, his death the loss of his family’s breadwinner, said his brother Dhanaprakash, aged 19. Auctioning of panchayat posts have been reported in villages in Dharmapuri, Thanjavur, Ramanathapuram and Cuddalore districts.
The post of Panchayat President could be bagged for Rs 15 to Rs 50 lakh, according to villagers and activists.
In the first elections to rural local bodies since 2011, candidates to as many as 18,570 posts out of 91,975 have already been elected unopposed.
While not all of these candidates may have been selected through auctions, the practice may play a role. However, though the practice is unconstitutional, there are other nuances at play.
The caste factor
For instance, in the villages of Cuddalore, for the general category, the nomination is mostly done by holding a meeting among influential persons in the village.
The candidates for reserved seats are decided by the same upper caste group of influential persons of the village.
The power of auctioning and bidding rests with the dominant community in a village, agreed writer and researcher Stalin Rajangam.
“Villages are traditionally the hubs of social power. Dalits of the village do not automatically become the dominant community even if they are numerically the majority there.
The positions of power like temple caretakers, organisers of the village fair and such rest with upper caste people,” he said.
Hence, a villager who is Dalit may not be able to take part in an auctions even if he has the money to spare. “Dalits are usually not allowed to even bid for fishing contracts in the temple tanks of many villages. This same rule comes into play here too,” Rajangam said.
Moreover, even if it is a reserved seat, people of the dominant community decide who contests.
“A Dalit man or woman may contest only if he or she has the blessings of the upper caste people in the village. These upper caste people decide the terms and a candidate who will abide by them is chosen,” said C Lakshmanan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.
Further, the money acquired by auctioning the post is unanimously decided to be spent on development of the village temples. That the same thrust is not given to the educational and health needs of the villages is indicative of a much larger issue. “We come together as a community to worship. But does the same community come together as readily to improve education in their villages?” asked Samuel Raj, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front.
How it works
It is common in many villages that the auction is conducted by temple managements. In Madurai, for instance, the auction amount is spent for establishing the temple, conducting rituals for the deity.
Usually the auction amount will range from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. But caste is not the only factor.
A villager Murugan from Thiruchuli union, for instance, said some Panchayat President posts would be given to a particular family and that particular family members would always be elected Panchayat President as if they were heirs to the seat.
Recently, the ‘Nallakulam’ Panchayat President was elected unopposed. Every village has a katta panchayat (informal community panchayat) and the villagers are bound to oblige them whether they like it or not, he added.
Sathish Kumar did not oblige them. He had reportedly protested the selling of the post in the Sattur Union. This allegedly led to an argument with Rama Subbu, who wanted to be selected unopposed. During a meeting, a few persons allegedly attacked Sathish injuring him seriously. His family rushed him to the Government Sivakasi Hospital, but he was declared brought dead.
Dhanaprakash said 50 people attacked his brother and their parents. “Sathish was a social activist and always raised his voice when justice was denied,” he said. According to A Kathir, executive director of Madurai-based Evidence, 24 cases of auctioning had been reported so far in the media.
Villagers defend practice
Villagers claim auctions are a way to easily pool money for development works instead of waiting for the government.
“Money for few development works take years to come and sometimes the work does not get approved. When such a situation arises, the auction money comes as immediate relief,” said Ramalingam, a voter from Manikandam Union.
When Express asked a few political functionaries why they did not take prevent such auctions, they dismissed it as an internal affair.
Authorities at a loss
However, even as videos purportedly documenting such incidents went viral, officials remain helpless. They claim they are at a loss on how to take action due to lack of evidence such as money trails and witnesses.
More so, as most of the incidents take place with the consent of the public.
“The incidents come to our knowledge through a few locals in the village, but they do not file a formal complaint fearing social exclusion. Even if we decide to probe the incident, no villager would come forward and stand as a witness. In such cases, how can we find someone and charge him of participating in an auction?” asked a Block Development Officer from the Tiruchy district.
“We also need evidence of an exchange of money to confirm the auction. If the incident does not come to wider knowledge, the candidates deposit the money as a donation to the temple or if the candidate is trusted by the community, they will directly spend on development works. With no concrete evidence, there is not much we can do,” the official added.
For instance, after a complaint was filed at Valaiyur village at Manachanallur Union about an auction, Siruganur police registered a bribery case against an unidentified person.
The posts of panchayat union ward councillor, panchayat president and panchayat vice-president were decided allegedly after aspirants agreed to pay a total of Rs 26.92 lakhs.
However, the BDO Rajendran said 25 people were questioned and 19 denied any such incident and six claimed they knew nothing of the matter.
Express sought a response from State Election Commission about the practice. But, despite a reporter waiting at SEC office for two hours, officials refused to comment. (Inputs from Nirupama Viswanathan (Chennai), Jayakumar Madala (Tiruchy), Jeyalakshmi Ramanujam (Virudhunagar), Nirupa Sampath (Cuddalore) and Baranidharan C (Erode).