Contesting GP elections made easier now

BANGALORE: Two rulings: one from the high court and the other from Karnataka government have come to the rescue of candidates contesting gram panchayat polls. While the presence of a toilet in a contesting candidate''s house being mandatory was struck down by the court, the government decided to do away with its two-child norm.
With no pre-conditions for contesting the 89,412 seats in 5,526 GPs, for which polls will be held on February 25 and 27, these polls, though non-political, will be no different from other contests.
In 2000, the State Election Commission (SEC) amended the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, making it mandatory for a candidate to have a toilet in his/her house. If the candidate did not have one at the time of filing nomination, an undertaking had to be given that it would be constructed within six months after getting elected. The intention was since panchayat members are role models at the grassroots level, they have no moral right to continue if they neglected rural sanitation.
But shortly after the provision was notified, it was struck down by the court on grounds that it was "unconstitutional".
When the Act was amended, the government had expected a sudden flush of toilet-construction activity in most villages. Subsidies were to be given for these low-cost toilets (each costing Rs 4,000) under a programme called Nirmala Grama Yojana. The estimation was that more than two lakh toilets would be constructed, as there would be at least three contenders for each seat. The SEC had also sent a proposal to the government in 2004 to reject nominations of contestants who had big families. The proposal was on the lines of a Haryana model, which was upheld by SC.
"This provision, if implemented, would have been a revolutionary, as it imbibed a sense of society among the candidates. Earlier, we had a large number of illiterate GP members, members with more than five to seven children and members without any basic amenities in their homes," sources said.