Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC), while welcoming the state government’s decision to conduct elections to Urban Local bodies (ULBs)/Town Councils and to implement 33% reservation for women in civic polls, raised doubts on whether chief minister T.R. Zeliang and the government could assert their authority in implementing 33% women reservation or succumb to the pressures of some civil societies “who have no accountability towards the people they claim to represent”.
In a press note, NPCC media cell said that 33% reservation for women was made through The Nagaland Municipal (First Amendment) Act, 2006 but “NPF govt dithered and backtracked in its implementation”. According to media cell, after elections to ULBs were postponed on pretext or the other including the issue of women reservation since 2010, the NPF government illegally appointed their party workers in the guise of advisors and “these people without any accountability or even an iota of moral conscience looted and destroyed the institution of local bodies”.
Media cell also claimed that majority of the council members in the past barring some few honest souls have failed to perform their duty.
“While busy taxing every item for themselves, they could not even fill potholes, provide garbage disposal or clear clogged drains,” it said. Instead of executing their duties, they council member “sat together with illegal tax collectors in the gates and people were subjected to multiple taxes on all items from multiple points”, media cell alleged.
In such circumstances, media cell said that the people needed council(s) that could provide safety and security to life and property of people. “We need Council that may facilitate entrepreneurs and traders”, it said.
Therefore, media cell said it expected that the election be conducted in free and fair manner. Media cell also appealed the voters to elect upright leaders to serve the welfare of common people and “not rascals, rogues and freebooters with low calibre to avoid squabbles amongst themselves for power”.