Editorial: Why Have Parties in Bastis

There are a total of 987 Gram Panchayat wards in Sikkim and 198 Zilla Panchayats to complete the two tier panchayati raj institutions. What this means is that any party wishing to join the race to the grassroots would have to find 1,185 community leaders in its ranks to contest on its behalf. The requirement for a pan-Sikkim footprint is further reinforced by the rule that ward-level candidates need to be voters registered in the same GPU. And then there are the reservation patterns which can spring surprises. What all this means is that a political outfit which has distanced itself from the rural majority or operates out of limited areas will have a tough time approaching rural body polls and this is essentially why they shy away from panchayat elections. Losing elections is one thing, not being able to find enough candidates brings political embarrassments to whole new low.
But first, let’s argue out the point on why panchayat polls should be contested on party lines. Since the polls are now upon Sikkim, the nomination filing process completed and the list of candidates finalised, one can deliberate on the virtues of party-based panchayat elections without appearing to be taking sides. Many arguments have been presented by those who stayed away from the recent polls and even though the claims sound justified at first, they all go against the grain of democracy. One cannot ignore the fact that the panchayats are the smallest unit of a working democracy. Is it not necessary then that the composition of panchayats be the same as that of the State Assembly and the Parliament, both of which have candidates segregated on party lines and even make space for independents? The argument that panchayat polls on party lines causes avoidable division among the rural folk, although plausible, takes the naiveté of the people for granted. When the same voters are expected to be “intelligent” enough to elect MLAs contesting as party candidates, why is it that they are considered too “immature” or “innocent” to do the same for their panchayats? When people elect a State Government, they are expected to do so on the basis of ideology, why then should they be called to elect panchayats on the basis of personality? How can divisions caused by several independent candidates in a small ward be any worse than divisions caused if they are wearing party colours? This is not to say that divisions or ‘black-listings’ do happen, but that is because democracy is allowed to be abused, not because the format is intrinsically flawed. Because development is now increasingly being powered from grassroots up, it becomes imperative that the grassroots leaders be decided on the basis of the ideology they subscribe to for development as a collective unit. Development, after all, cannot be achieved in isolation, it has to be a movement which can be achieved only when all panchayats work in tandem, preferably unified under the ideology of a political party; Unified, not across the State, but at least among themselves and within fellow panchayats from their respective parties. What panchayats wearing party colours also make possible, if adequately demanded by the people, is accountability. If the elections were fought on non-party lines, then it would have been too easy for the powers-that-be to ignore non-performance and blame it on the panchayats. They can’t afford to do so any more. The same applies for the panchayat leaders. As independents, it would be all too easy for them to claim that the “government” does not listen to them. As members of a political outfit, they cannot do so any more since they have a unified representation which can be more forcefully heard. A democracy without accountability is an exercise in futility and now that more and more powers are being delegated to the panchayats, it is imperative that they be made more accountable. Given the interpretation of democracy that we practice in India, it is only natural that the parties in government enjoy an advantage when panchayat elections are held during their term in office. Since little can be done to change this, the onus to keep the panchayats above the mechanisations of petty politics also lies with those in power. It is important that the record on this account is kept cleaner this time around.