Gangtok,Sep04: Emboldened by state government earlier directive to revisit the issue of delimitation of local bodies before elections, the opposition party BJP today questioned the Panchayat election campaign undertaken by Sikkim Democratic Front party in state.In a press release issued by C.B.Chettri, General Secretary, Sikkim State BJP, it has alleged that Opposition parties in Sikkim are being kept in dark by SDF government on status of Panchayats and Municipal bodies delimitation as ongoing SDF campaign for Panchayat elections clearly hints its prior knowledge of the way things going to shape up as regards to event of delimitation of local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities in Sikkim.
The Press release of BJP
"The BJP was wondering as how the SDF party is campaigning for the Panchayat and Municipality election when the final delimitation of wards and the reservation of the ward to which category it fall, is not known.
It now appears that SDF party knows fully well what is the revised delimitation of the wards; reservation percentage for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled tribe, Backward classes and women besides which wards have been reserved for which category. If this be not so how can the SDF Party meeting held at Uttarey, Dentam on 31st August 2007 and attended by the MLA of the area, local Panchayat, Zilla Panchayat, Party workers and the people of the area express gratitude to the Chief Minister for increasing the reservation for Scheduled Caste?
The opposition parties have been kept at dark to the extent that even the copy of the draft new Delimitation for Panchayat and its voter list published has not been made available despite making requests both verbally and in writing.
The BJP feels it won the first battle in the Panchayat and Municipality election by compelling the Government to revise the delimitation of both Panchayat and Municipality wards to the extent that the election to the Municipality wards is understood, is being deferred. The Government had to do this because of the objections raised and suggestion given by the party to the Chief Secretary and the State Election Commission on 26th July 2007.
The Party has not been able to ascertain as yet whether the reservation percentage and assignment of the reserved wards will be done by the State Election Commission or by the Department.
If the delimitation and the reservation is finalized without giving copy to the party and time to place its view and if the revised delimitation is also not proper, it may seek ways to get this corrected. The intention of the party is to help the Government in delimiting the ward constituencies in proper way for proportionate development of all area besides making reservation proportionately representative so that the reservation is not illogical i.e. the ward which should have gone for one category does not go to another. Going by the percentage population of ST, SC and Backward classes, the reservation should have been above 95% to nearly cent percent in the Panchayats as there are hardly any population of general category outside Municipality area."
