Karnataka government plans compulsory voting in panchayat polls

BENGALURU: The Congress government in Karnataka plans to impose compulsory voting in panchayat elections, a move that his party criticised when the Gujarat government passed a similar legislation.

Replicating the Gujarat Local Authorities Laws Bill, 2009, the Karnataka Panchayat Raj ( Amendment) Bill 2015, under discussion in the state assembly, has made voting mandatory for all three tiers of panchayats in the state. Elections to the panchayats are expected to be held in May.

Then governor of Gujarat, Kamla Beniwal, had rejected the bill on the grounds that mandatory voting violated the citizen’s rights under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Siddaramaiah government, however, seems to have no such concern.

The Karnataka government was expected to make sweeping changes to the structure of panchayats in the state after a committee under senior Congress MLA KR Ramesh Kumar submitted a detailed report in November. Siddaramaiah had even said that the new bill would put his stamp on reforming and reviving the panchayat raj system.

"We are delighted that the Karnataka government has opted to make voting mandatory, like in Gujarat," opposition leader Jagadish Shettar said. "However, the Ramesh Kumar committee had made several suggestions which could have been included in this amendment that the government has introduced in the legislature. It its current form, this amendment has no teeth," he contended.

The Committee had suggested that voters be given the right to recall, that the gram sabha should decide on devolution and disbursement of funds, that a separate cadre be set up to administer panchayats and that the village panchayat had the right to decide if land could be given for industrial or other purposes.

It had suggested sweeping changes, including separate gram sabhas for women, the physically challenged, the artisan community and so on, to decide upon priority allocation. "We hope that the government will bring about these changes in further amendments to the Panchayat Raj Act. Otherwise, the amendments they have proposed will not have much effect," Nandana Reddy, a member of the Ramesh Kumar committee, told ET.