Kamal Ghorui
Senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Monday accused the BJP government in Rajasthan of weakening grassroots democracy by delaying local body and panchayat elections, alleging that the move was driven by “fear of defeat”.Citing a broader concern over delays in local elections in several states, Pilot told reporters in Tonk that the situation in Rajasthan reflected a “systematic attempt” to avoid democratic accountability at the grassroots level.“Across cities and villages, administrators are in place but they are unable to effectively handle people’s day-to-day issues. There is a widespread demand that elections be held at the earliest,” he said.
The former deputy chief minister said that since the BJP came to power in the state, elections to student unions, municipal bodies and panchayat institutions have not been conducted.“Our party has been consistently demanding that elections be held at the earliest. Even after court directions and the April 15 deadline, elections have not been conducted. It is unclear what the Election Commission and the government are doing,” Pilot said.Alleging political motives behind the delay, he said, “It is widely believed that the BJP government does not want to hold elections because the results will not be in their favour. Out of this fear, they are repeatedly postponing polls on one pretext or another.”Pilot also targeted the Centre over the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), claiming that it had been “effectively shut down” in Rajasthan and weakened across the country.“In the villages I visited, MGNREGA work has almost come to a halt. We had warned earlier that renaming schemes was a cover to dilute them. When Congress was in power, lakhs of people benefited, but today the scheme is nearly defunct,” he said.He further alleged that the government was not allocating adequate funds for rural development and was focusing more on “management through advertisements” than actual governance.Questioning the state government’s employment claims, Pilot said, “In the first budget, there was a promise of four lakh jobs. Now two-and-a-half years have passed, how many people have actually been employed?”He asserted that the Congress would continue to mount pressure on the government to conduct elections and address governance issues, saying the current approach was not in the interest of the people.
