By IANS,
New Delhi : Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi Thursday had some words of praise for the Left and the Dravidian parties who, he said, had structures to give voice to people at the village level.
“We need to have architectures to involve the ‘pradhans’ (village heads). The parties are not designed for pradhans. Only the Left and the Dravidian parties have it,” Gandhi said at the annual general body meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.
Gandhi was responding to questions from the vice president of CII, Ajay Shriram, on centre-state relations.
According to Gandhi, the pradhans, who play a crucial role in getting things done at the ground level, do not have a say in the power system, which is run by MPs and state legislators.
“The challenge is coming from the pradhans,” Gandhi said, explaining what he termed a dissonance in the system that has occurred after the introduction of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution that gave power to panchayats, the village-level bodies.
The Amethi MP said there were around 700 pradhans under him and the leaders go to the pradhans asking for their support during election time.
“I have the power to make policy but not the pradhans. We need devolution of power,” he said.