Elections to ZP standing committees postponed again

Congress members abstain from polls; meet deferred to Sept 1

The general meeting of zilla panchayat, which had been scheduled to elect the members to the standing committees on Thursday, was cancelled following the absence of Congress party members.

Though the Congress members were present on the ZP office premises, they abstained from the election process.

This is the fourth meeting, scheduled to elect members to the committees, which failed to achieve its desired results. While one meeting, that was scheduled for July 5, was postponed owing to lack of quorum, two meetings, on August 5 and 11, were cancelled due to other reasons.

With the delay in constituting the committees, major development works like drinking water projects, selection of beneficiaries under various schemes and others are affected. Of the five standing committees, election for ‘Education and Health’, ‘Agriculture and Industries’ and ‘Social Justice’ were scheduled for Thursday. The president and vice-president of the ZP are the ex-officio presidents for ‘Finance’ and ‘General’ standing committees, respectively.

The meeting was scheduled to be held under the chairmanship of ZP President Nayeema Sulthana at 11 am, but the president postponed the meeting till 12 noon as no member turned up at the meeting venue. Later, when the meeting commenced, 31 members, including JD(S) MLAs G T Devegowda, Chikkamadu, Sa Ra Mahesh and BJP MP Pratap Simha were present. After waiting for a few minutes for Congress members, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), also election officer, P Shivashankar, adjourned the meeting to September 1.

The Mysuru ZP has an electorate of 74 — 49 ZP members, three MPs, 11 MLAs, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, four MLCs and seven taluk panchayat presidents. The Congress tops the list with 37, followed by JD(S) 26, BJP 10 and one Independent. To elect the standing committee members, at least, 37 members should be present for quorum. But, only 31 members were present, so, the meet had to be postponed, said the CEO.

“The members can skip two meetings, but they must attend the third meeting to avoid disqualification. Without constituting the committees, no general meeting can be convened and the development works will be affected,” he said.

After postponement, MLA G T Devegowda said, “Congress members are disrespecting democractic values. They are not bothered about the development works in the district. The president and vice-president of the ZP were elected four months ago. But, the Congress members are not allowing the body to elect members to the standing committees. The opposition members are deliberately skipping the meeting due to political grudge”. He also took the ZP officials to task for not displaying the name board of voters.

Sa Ra Mahesh said, name boards of all the voters, including CM, MLAs, MPs and TP presidents should be displayed. He pointed out that two times, on July 29 and August 11, the meetings were cancelled as Congress members requested.