Delimitation panel a tool for Karnataka government to put off Zilla, Taluk Panchayat elections?

In one stroke, the ruling BJP might have found a way to postpone elections to all the taluk and zilla panchayats, the grassroots local bodies, by at least one year.

Karnataka has 31 zilla panchayats under which there are 232 taluk panchayats, representing all 30,000 villages in the state.

They were due for elections in May-June this year, but the devastating second wave of Covid-19 came in the way.

Now, a decision taken by the Basavaraj Bommai administration could hold up the elections, in a classic case of how policy and politics are entwined.

Last week, the Cabinet decided to create a delimitation commission to redraw panchayat boundaries, a laborious task that the State Election Commission (SEC) has been doing since 2003.

Effectively, the government will take away the SEC’s power in carrying out delimitation.

Also, the new commission will fix reservation for all panchayat seats, another job the SEC does.

The government argued that the SEC should not be burdened with works that can be done by a temporary commission.

So, the government is likely to move a Bill in the upcoming session of the legislature to amend the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act to appoint the new delimitation commission.

Officials and experts find no fault in the government’s decision in that it is well within its powers.

The real question is: why is this being done now when the SEC has finished the delimitation and reservation exercise?

“The government can entrust the task to delimitation to whoever. We have done our job. But, if the new (delimitation) process is applied now, the current election will get delayed further,” State Election Commissioner B Basavaraju says.

“Our apprehension is that if timely polls are not held, development works will be affected. Also, there are Central grants to local bodies tied to timely elections.”

By March-April this year, the SEC had finished the delimitation and reservation process.

This was done because in 2015 the then Congress government amended the law to revise the population criteria for the panchayats: 10,000 to 12,500-15,000 for a taluk panchayat and 20,000 to 35,000-40,000 for a zilla panchayat.

“There was no provision for citizens to file objections on the delimitation that has been carried out. As a result, over 2,000 cases have been filed in the court. So, we felt it was right to have a separate delimitation commission that can hear objections,” Law Minister J C Madhuswamy explained last week.

“We will tell the court that a delimitation commission has been appointed. If the court is convinced, we will take up the delimitation process
again.”

Basavaraju says the SEC will “wait and see” for the government’s decision.

“As SEC, our mandate is to conduct elections on time. We have to now see how our mandate might get obstructed.”

A former state election commissioner says: “The SEC can always decide to hold elections. But, it’ll be difficult to conduct smooth elections by fighting the government, which has to cooperate with funds and machinery.”

DH has reliably learnt that the ruling BJP is uncomfortable with the reservation fixed by the SEC.

“It was a Herculean task,” Basavaraju says of fixing reservations.

“We had to rotate the roster such that there was no repetition of the reservations that were fixed in any previous election.”

So, why would the BJP government want to put off the panchayat elections?

“Panchayat polls reflect the realistic public mood and maybe, the BJP has seen the writing on the wall,” political analyst Muzaffar Assadi says.

“Maybe they think it’s a risk as the outcome of these polls will reflect on the new leadership, going into the 2023 Assembly elections.”

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