SEC to get powers on delimitation, reservation of wards

NT NETWORK

Panaji

The government will soon introduce bills to amend the Goa Panchayat Raj Act as well as the Goa Municipality Act, so as to hand over all the rights pertaining to the delimitation and reservations of wards to the state election commission.

Stating that the government intends to bring in an amendment to the state legislations related to the municipalities and the panchayats, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday said that due to this decision of his government the municipal administration directorate will soon be relieved of the said exercise.

Earlier during the question hour, the Opposition slammed the government for the haphazard process undertaken without following proper criteria for delimitation and reservation of municipal wards at the beginning of this year.

Opposition leader Digambar Kamat, who raised this issue, stated that various people and political parties had to approach the Bombay High Court at Goa to nullify the said erroneous exercise.

“However, the government made it a prestige issue and went in appeal before the Supreme Court by hiring a battery of eminent lawyers, thus spending astronomical amount on the case,” he pointed out, demanding to know the expenditure spent by the government on the same.

Goa Forward Party MLA Vijai Sardesai maintained that the Supreme Court gave a tight slap over to the government by passing strong strictures on the government, and since his party had approached the court of law against this exercise and won the case, the government should reimburse the amount spent by the party on the case.

The Congress and the Goa Forward Party were among nine petitioners in the case and had alleged that the reservation of wards was politically motivated and done without any logic.

The court had subsequently nullified the exercise and ordered the government to re-conduct the

same in the municipalities of Margao, Mormugao, Mapusa, Sanguem and Quepem.

Indirectly admitting the folly, the Chief Minister said that his government had approached the apex court in appeal as the delimitation and reservation process undertaken by the municipal administration directorate as per the Census 2011, was already complete.

Sardesai alleged that the state poll panel had become a puppet in the hands of the government, while Kamat said the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court pertaining to Goa, wherein the apex court stated that no person holding government post should be a state election commissioner, became applicable to all the states in the country.

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