By IANS,
Jammu : The Jammu and Kashmir assembly speaker has rejected the BJP’s proposed resolutions on implementing constitutional amendments providing greater powers to panchayats in the state, a party legislator said Tuesday.
Talking to media persons here, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Ashok Khajuria said his proposal that the assembly in its session beginning Oct 1 take up and pass resolutions for implementing provisions of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution has been disallowed.
“This shows that National Conference-Congress coalition government does not want to empower the panchayats,” he alleged.
The BJP legislator termed the Congress and its general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s assertion Tuesday that they want to empower panchayats and the rejection of his resolutions as indicative of the “insincerity of Congress and doublespeak of the National Conference”.
“Passage of the resolution by the assembly would have effectively empowered the panches (panchayat members) and sarpanches (panchayat chairmen) and made them effective tools for social change at grass root level in the villages,” he said.
The issue of empowering panchayats and attacks on its elected members was discussed in Tuesday’s Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet in New Delhi.
The 73rd and 74th amendments grant constitutional status to elected rural local bodies.
They also provide for direct elections to all seats in the panchayats, compulsory elections every five years, mandatory reservation of seats for Dalits and tribals in proportion to their share of the panchayat population and mandatory reservation of one-third of seats for women.