Spouses show up at event to honour women sarpanches in Palwal district, turned away

Sumedha Sharma

Gurugram, July 11

In what yet again highlights the rampant proxy culture in the state’s Panchayati Raj system, ‘sarpanch patis’ (sarpanch’s husband) and ‘sarpanch pratinidhis’ (sarpanch’s representative) presented themselves for felicitation for TB-mukt villages in Palwal.

The district-level function was hosted to felicitate the sarpanches of 29 villages in the district who had managed to make their villages TB-free.

However, much to the shock of officials headed by DC Neha Singh, majority of the women sarpanches skipped the function and their husbands or brothers-in-law presented themselves as “true” functioning sarpanches to collect

the awards.

Refusing to accept this, the first woman DC of Palwal Neha Singh refused to felicitate them. After initially asking them to leave, she allowed them just to be spectators and cheer for a handful of women sarpanches who attended the function.

“People have chosen you irrespective of your gender and you need to be proud of that. If women can contest elections, seek vote and win, they can work, attend meetings and execute panchayati duties. Nobody should allow their male relatives to be their proxies. Men should be supporters, not substitutes. We will not encourage or allow this,” said Neha while addressing the attendees.

She initially told all proxies to wait outside and call the women sarpanches but when they didn’t come, she allowed the men to sit in the audience and clap.

Speaking to The Tribune, Neha Singh said, “It’s unconstitutional and illegal, but most importantly, it should be socially unacceptable. If there is a woman sarpanch in a village, then only she will be executing her duties and getting felicitated. This is the first step towards women empowerment in any district. This time, we allowed them to sit in the audience. We have warned all woman sarpanches that no substitutes will be entertained and action will also be taken wherever applicable.”