The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) should appoint the State Election Commissioner (SEC) to ensure that the local body elections are conducted in a fair and impartial manner, said G. Ramakrishnan, Tamil Nadu State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) here on Tuesday.
Talking to newspersons, Mr. Ramakrishnan said that since the Chief Electoral Officer who conducted the Assembly elections was appointed by and under the control of the CEC, the CEO was answerable to the CEC. On the other hand, the SEC was answerable to state government, and, therefore, loyal to it as the State was the appointing authority. Just as the CEO was appointed by the CEC, the SEC should also be appointed by the CEC.
The CPI (M) leader wanted the state government to allocate one-third of its tax income to local bodies just as the Centre allotted one-third of its tax income from a particular State to the respective State. He regretted that for the last 20 years, the AIADMK and DMK governments in Tamil Nadu had been neglecting the local bodies.
He said that they were conducting the local body elections only to fulfil the legal requirement of conducting the elections once in five years, and not with the intention of empowering the local bodies. Just as the Chief Minister is the Chairman of the State Planning Commission, the District Panchayat chairman is the president of the District Planning Committee (DPC), but the DPCs are not given the powers to formulate plans for the districts. Both the DMK and the AIADMK have in the past taken the stand that the District Panchayats are unnecessary, he said.
Recommendation ignored
Mr. Ramakrishnan said that the First State Finance Commission, which submitted its report to the state government in 1996, had recommended that the State government allocate 8 to 12 per cent of its funds to the local bodies.
But, only 10 per cent of the funds have been allotted to the local bodies in the 2011-12 State budget, 15 years after the first SFC submitted its report. He wanted the State government to allot funds to local bodies to be elected after the elections on October 17 and 19 on the basis of the report submitted by the Fourth SFC.
The CPI (M) leader wanted the government to enact an integrated Urban Local Bodies Act governing the urban local bodies such as the Corporations, Municipalities and the Town Panchayats on the lines of the District Panchayats Act, which governed the rural local bodies of District Panchayats, Panchayat Unions and Village Panchayats.
On the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project, Mr. Ramakrishnan said that the people in Tirunelveli district still entertained fears about the safety of the project. He, therefore, wanted the government to keep the project in abeyance till an independent committee of experts studied the project and guaranteed its safety. He described as “belated action,” the searches conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the premises of former Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran and his elder brother and managing director of the Sun Network Kalanidhi Maran in Chennai and Delhi.
Addressings meetings to canvass support for G. Latha, CPI (M) candidate for the election to the post of Mayor of Vellore Corporation on Tuesday, Mr. Ramakrishnan said that the CPI (M) would ensure a clean, honest and transparent administration if its candidate was elected Mayor and the candidates of the CPI (M) and the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam were elected Councillors of the Corporation. He said that the CPI (M) and the DMDK would ensure honest and transparent administration in all Corporations, Municipalities and Town Panchayats where they contested, if their candidates got elected.
