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| Congress not interested in empowering Panchayats? | | NC & Panchayati Raj | | Rustam
JAMMU, Apr 27: The National Conference (NC), which is sharing power with the Congress and has been leading the government since the last more than three years, is actually at the mercy of the Congress like the Congress at the centre is at the mercy of Trinamool Congress (TMC) of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee. Everyone knows that the TMC has only 18 members in the Lok Sabha, as against the Congress's tally of 2007 and still it is the TMC that is calling the shots and dictating terms. The TMC is part of the Congress-led UPA and is sharing power with the Congress like the Congress is part of the coalition government in the state and sharing power with the NC which has only 28 members in the Legislative Assembly, 16 less than the required number. You need a minimum of 44 MLAs to form government in Jammu & Kashmir.
It needs to be underlined that the state Congress leaders, including the JKPCC president Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz and Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, have been consistently propagating that their party is committed to empowering the Panchayats. As far as Soz is concerned, he has made the adoption of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments the cornerstone of his speeches and press statements. He has been making identical statements in Kashmir and Jammu since months giving the people to understand that the goal is very near. But he has, it appears, never asked the Congress ministers to take up the issue in the cabinet. On the contrary, the NC is very clear as far as its stand on the issue of empowerment of Panchayats, Panches and Sarpanches is concerned. There is no ambiguity whatsoever in its stand. It is opposed to the idea of Panchayats getting powers which are available to such institutions in several states under the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. If at all there was any confusion in this regard, it was cleared just four days ago by none other than the additional general secretary of the NC, Sheikh Mustafa Kamaal, who happens to the brother of NC president Farooq Abdullah and uncle of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
Reacting to the April 20 statement of Prof Soz that the NC was not accepting its demand seeking empowerment of the Panchayats, Kamaal had said in Srinagar that the incorporation of 73rd amendment in the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution at this point in time "is not something urgent" and that "Soz should have waited for next Assembly session". "There is no need of bringing ordinance for amending (the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayati Raj Act) at this juncture," he had said. Soz had in Rajouri contemptuously dismissed the NC as the "only hurdle in the empowerment of Panchayats" and had asked the Panches and Sarpanchs to start a campaign against the state government so that it was forced to adopt the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments.
Is the Congress party really interested in empowering Panchayats, Panchs and Sarpanchs? The answer cannot be in the affirmative. Had the Congress party been sincerely committed to what it promised in its 2008 election manifesto and worked in right earnest to achieve the objective, the state government would have adopted both the amendments long ago. The Congress is part of the government and not outside it. In fact, the NC cannot remain in power even for a moment if the Congress so likes. For, the NC is not running a single-party government; it is running a coalition government.
One may put in any amount of efforts to find if any of the Congress ministers or any of the Congress MLAs or MLCs has ever raised the issue at proper forums, including the State Cabinet, Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, during all these more than three years, one would come out of the exercise minus everything. Soz is not just president of the JKPCC. He is also chairman of the NC-Congress Coordination Committee which discusses and decides issues of governance. The fact of the matter is that the Congress leaders are simply indulging in hollow sloganeering for reasons best known to them. It's no wonder then that the NC leadership is taunting the Congress leadership saying "Soz should have raised the issue of empowerment of Panchayats in the Coordination Committee" and asking him: "Why did he not get the issue raised in last Legislative Assembly session, if he was so much sincere about the subject."
If the JKPCC is really interested in the genuine empowerment of the Panchayats and Panchs and Sarpanches, it has to imitate the TMC leadership and act accordingly. Just one threat that it would withdraw support to the government in case its demand is not conceded forthwith would be enough to make the NC kneel and yield. But will the JKPCC muster courage and imitate the TMC?
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