This Article is From Jul 18, 2013

In Andhra Pradesh, democracy on sale. Price eight lakhs

Hyderabad: Mahalakshmi admits she 'won' the sarpanch post by paying Rs 8,25,000 in Shyvalyapuram gram panchayat in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.

She says the amount was for repair works to be carried out in the Rama temple in the village.

Shyvalyapuram was among those gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh where the post of sarpanch was auctioned to the highest bidder, for anywhere between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 40 lakh.

The State Election Commission or SEC has a list of at least 26 gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh where villagers had decided to 'sell' the post of sarpanch to whoever would pay the highest amount. Shyvalyapuram doesn't figure in the list.

The authorities have seized cash involved in the transactions in some cases and in one case, there was even an agreement on a 100-rupee stamp paper.

The amount was either to be used by the gram panchayat for development works, those for which government funds are not available or the money was to be simply distributed among the people.
Auctioning sarpanch posts is a subversion of the democratic process, say observers. The government says it is illegal but ironically, the government has a decades-old scheme that offers financial incentives to gram panchayats where there is unanimous election.

Match-fixing between different political parties also ensures that only single candidates are in the fray even though panchayat elections in the state are not fought on party symbols.

Panchayat elections are to take place in three phases in the last week of this month.

The SEC has now booked First Information Reports or FIRs and arrested several people involved in the auctions.

But the irony is that at least 1,000 of the 21,441 gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh, are all set to elect their sarpanch unanimously.

The SEC is now considering recommending that the government's incentive scheme for unanimous election of candidates be withdrawn as it may not be suitable in today's environment.
 
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