Thousands of candidates have been rejected due to non-payment of chulha tax, but they allege officials are not accepting it to favour the Congress.
Chandigarh: For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. And in Punjab, for want of a chulha tax of just Rs 7, the entire process of panchayat elections has been jeopardised.
The panchayat polls are set to be held on 30 December, and thousands of prospective candidates have been rejected because they have not paid the meagre Rs 7 per annum chulha tax supposed to be given to the gram panchayat.
The last date of filing nominations was 19 December, and about 49,000 prospective candidates filed their nomination papers for the sarpanch elections, and another 1.65 lakh for the panch elections. However, after the scrutiny of nomination papers, only about 28,000 candidates remained in the fray for sarpanch positions, and about one lakh for the panchs.
“Rejection of nominations is based on reports submitted by returning officers. A returning officer, in turn, seeks reports from concerned panchayat officials,” said Punjab’s state election commissioner Jagpal Singh Sandhu.
“In case panchayat officials find that the prospective candidate has not paid any of the taxes due to the gram panchayat, or is encroaching upon any government land, he will not clear the name of the prospective candidate.”
Case reaches high court
The state election commission is flooded with complaints and grievances from such prospective candidates, alleging their nomination papers have been rejected on frivolous grounds.
Then, Monday evening, almost 100 writ petitions were filed at the same time in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, demanding a stay on the polls at places where nominations have been ‘wrongly rejected’.
A vacation bench of the high court, which sat late Monday evening, has now asked the election commission to reconsider the rejected nomination papers of these prospective candidates. The commission has been asked to report back to the court within 48 hours.
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Allegations against ruling Congress
Anyone who wants to contest the polls has to clear the dues of the gram panchayat of which he is a member. The chulha tax is one of them, and since it’s very nominal, everyone wakes up to it just ahead of the polls. Chulha tax is one of several British Raj-era taxes, imposed on those who use a burner or a stove at home. Other such taxes charged by gram panchayats include forest wood tax and cow dung tax.
The panchayat secretary, who is an employee of the department of rural development and panchayat and whose job is to collect this tax, also begins doing this usually after the polls are announced, and prospective candidates rush to pay it.
However, this time, hundreds of prospective candidates have alleged that the panchayat officials working at the behest of the ruling Congress refused to take the tax from them in order to ensure that there is no competition for Congress-supported candidates.
Several such prospective candidates of village Kamalpura blocked the Ajnala-Amritsar main road last week to protest against the block development and panchayat officer, who had allegedly remained absent from his office to avoid those wanting to pay the tax.
Sandhu, meanwhile, said the department should complete the process of collecting chulha tax and other dues from the gram panchayat members as part of a “systematic and continuing process”, and not just when the elections are announced.
Political crossfire
While no political party contests the panchayat polls on their symbols, candidates in the fray are generally supported by them.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has been at the forefront of levelling allegations of misuse of state machinery against the Congress, and said the panchayat poll process in Punjab had collapsed.
Daljit Singh Cheema, senior vice-president and spokesperson of the SAD, said candidates supported by them were not allowed to file nomination papers at several places, and wherever they managed to file nomination papers, these were rejected. He said that in Patti town in Tarn Taran district, 90 per cent of the nomination papers had been rejected, giving the Congress an advantage.
Five years ago, when these elections were last held and the Akali-BJP alliance was in power, Congress leaders had levelled similar allegations, saying that the non-payment of the chulha tax was being misused.
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More about the polls
Elections to Panchayati Raj institutions are being held in two phases. While elections to the panchayat samitis and zila parishads were held in September, elections for sarpanchs of over 13,270 gram panchayats and about 84,000 panchs are to be held on 30 December.
Following the scrutiny of the nomination papers, over 1,850 sarpanchs and another 22,000 panchs were declared elected unopposed.
There are over 1.27 crore registered voters in the state for these elections. Voting will take place on ballot papers and counting for the results will begin immediately after the voting is over.