Direct poll plea for more accountability

KOLHAPUR

: Political experts feel that direct elections for the post of president of the municipal council, a practice that will be resumed after a decade-long gap, will bring in more accountability.

While the political parties have started scrutinising candidates for the direct election, they have to ensure that the candidate has approval from all sections of the society. Experts claimed that directly-elected presidents will make the position more accountable to citizens and will be above the party lines.

B S Waghmare, professor of political science at Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (

Bamu

) in

Aurangabad

, said the new election process was closer to the presidential election system adopted in various countries.

"In our country, we have adopted the parliamentary system wherein the head of the state or council is elected from among the elected representatives. Electing the head of the council directly will ultimately increase accountability. The system, however, has been quite successful in the two-party system and in our system, where a number of parties nominate their candidates," he said.

In May this year, the state government decided to revive the process of direct elections for the post of president of municipal council with a view to make the civic body's administration more effective and efficient. The government had implemented this process from 2002 to 2006 before discarding it. The government then reverted to the election process that existed before 2002, where the municipal council president was elected by councillors.

The decision was reverted after the government found that it is hard to run the council wherein a majority of the councillors are from one party and president is from another party that has very little or no representation in the house. In such a situation, despite having a majority in the house, the councillors had to depend on the president to get sanction for various proposals.

Experts claim the new system will be beneficial as it will help keep horse-trading of councillors at bay. Also, the new system will help keep a check on money and muscle power use during elections.

Mahadevrao Adgule, former mayor of

Kolhapur Municipal Corporation

(

KMC

) and senior advocate, said the president's post is largely ceremonial at present and the new system will ensure certainty on the basis of which the head of the council can take decisions. "The government must however address the concern regarding repeated stalling of decisions if the president is from party that does not have much representation in the house," he said.