State govt not keen on civic polls: Saroori

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 27

State Congress vice-president and Inderwal MLA GM Saroori today regretted that the PDP-BJP regime had eroded the sanctity and credibility of democratic institutions in the state through its “gimmicks and misdeeds”. “The state government does not want to conduct urban local bodies’ elections,” he said.

The Deputy Chief Minister, who was holding charge of the Urban Local Bodies Department, was depriving citizens of their democratic rights and eroding the sanctity of democratic institutions, he said.

“Instead of strengthening democratic institutions, the present dispensation has been indulging in undemocratic means to undermine the role of elected representatives,” he said. He pointed to inordinate delay in conducting local bodies’ elections in the state.

Saroori said the Deputy Chief Minister kept saying during the election campaign that the BJP, if voted to power, would conduct elections to urban local bodies, including in Jammu and Srinagar, but the government had postponed the elections on one excuse or the other.

“I fail to understand why the government is shying away from its duty to conduct the elections. Formation of urban local bodies is a must to empower the people of urban areas,” he said.

He added that in a democratic system, it was necessary to have a representative character of all democratic institutions to ensure peoples’ participation in these institutions.