Congress legislators calls on Governor

Jammu, March 03: A delegation of Congress led by leader legislature party met the Governor N.N. Vohra on Friday and discussed the overall situation in the state besides apprising him of the various current issues of general public, especially the mode & manner of ongoing process of delimitation of Panchayats in the run up to Panchayat elections.

The delegation comprised N. Rigzin Jora CLP leader, G.M. Saroori, Haji Ab. Rashid, Asgar Karbalai, Gulzar Wani, Ch. Mohd. Akram, Deldan Namgyal, Naresh Gupta (All Legislators) besides Ravinder Sharma Chief Spokesperson of the Party.

The delegation apprised the governor about the illegalities and irregularities in the ongoing process of delimitation of Panchayats and wards and told him that the arbitrary and partisan manner adopted in the delimitation has vitiated the atmosphere of election to panchayat bodies at the grass root level. 

The ruling parties for the vested political interest have resorted to favoritism in the delimitation of wards through Rural Development Department which is contrary to law and all the norms in the democracy. 

The party said that government have deliberately undone the various provision of the Act as per spirit of 73rd amendment and even did not constitute the independent election commission, as envisaged in the Act. 

Taking strong objection to the entire delimitation process through Rural Development Dept of the government, the delegation demanded a de-novo delimitation of panchayats and wards under an independent mechanism of commission on a fair, transparent and non- partisan manner based on notified uniform and rational criteria, after taking the entire population of the panchayats into confidence. The party has already registered its protests in initial stage with the Election Authority from the very beginning and in all party meet convened by it but without any response on the issue.

The party also discussed the other burning issues of the people like total mess in the public distribution system, as despite hike in prices, people are not getting ration, sugar and K-Oil as per scale on regular basis. The issue of regularization of daily wages/Casual/need based and contractual workers/employees in different departments was also taken up. The failure of the centre and State govt. to fulfill the commitment to DPs/Refugees of 1947, 1965 and 1971 as per relirf package @ 25 lac per family and its other components and problems faced by them in getting the meager relief amount sanctioned were also highlighted.

The overall security environment also figured in discussion and the delegation expressed surprise over the fresh migration and registration undertaken by the government instead of ensuring the same return and rehabilitation of migrants.

The delegation raised the issue of backdoor appointments being done by the government in different departments especially in Police, Tourism and Bank etc and expressed concern over the injustice being done to the unemployment youth causing great resentment amongst them.

The delegation also apprised the governor over the pick and choose in the matter of security and accommodation to opposition leaders and activist, thus exposing them to the designs of anti national and anti social elements. The delegation raised various issues of general public and legislators discussed the problems of their respective areas and assembly constituencies including the failure of the government on all fronts in providing minimum governance to the people resulting into maladministration at various levels, where people are suffering a lot.