The AIADMK unit has urged Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi to pass necessary orders to the Government to comply with the directions of the Supreme Court on local body elections.
This will help to pre-empt any appeal to the Supreme Court which may further delay the matter.
A delegation led by Om Sakthi Sekar, former MLA, which submitted a memorandum to Ms. Bedi at the Raj Nivas expressed apprehensions that the Government of Puducherry may scuttle the spirit of the judgment by appealing to a larger bench of the apex court on the ground that it is not in possession of the community based data to implement the policy of reservation in local bodies.
The elections, which were due in 2011, were not conducted even after a lapse of seven years under some pretext or the other. In this backdrop, the memorandum urged the Lt. Governor to pre-empt any legal ploy to dilly-dally on the matter by soliciting from the Home Ministry the 2011 caste data available with the Census Commissioner of India.
According to the memorandum, the recent direction of the Supreme Court to the Government of Puducherry to hold the Panchayat and Municipal elections immediately, has sent shock waves to the vested political interest which has been obstructing the decentralisation of political and economic powers to the common man. The political class of Puducherry has always been averse and apathetic to local body organisations as they misconstrue them as rival political bodies. The absence of this elected third tier of governance in Puducherry for 38 consecutive years from 1968 to 2006 is the legacy of this undemocratic behaviour of the ruling class.
It was only due to the intervention of the Madras High Court and the Parliament that the local body elections were conducted in 2006 and about 1,134 representatives occupied political positions as Chairpersons, Councillors, Panchayat Presidents and Ward Members.
Mere decoratory pieces
However, they were rendered decoratory pieces without any authority. The Government of Puducherry did not devolve functions, functionaries or funds to the elected local bodies as envisaged by the 73rd and the 74th Amendments to the Indian Constitution.
