Rajasthan Assembly: Education no bar for local body elections

Rajasthan assembly on Monday cleared the amendment of municipality and Panchayati Raj Acts to waive education restriction criteria for contesting elections of local bodies. It was the former BJP government that had introduced the clause for education qualification for candidates contesting the local body elections, the Congress has promised to abolish the condition in its manifesto for the recent assembly elections. 

“The bill has been brought to fulfill the promise we made to public before elections,” urban development and local self governance minister, Shanti Dhariwal said in his response to debate on amendment in municipality act. 

The amendments were passed with voice vote even as BJP legislators in opposition registered their protest against the move as a step back from development. BJP government had introduced the educational criteria first through an ordinance soon after it formed government in 2014. Congress had objected to the move and the urgency of its implementation, however, the BJP government, which held a thumping majority in the House later had the provision included in the Act. 

Even as BJP claims that the decision of Congress government to roll back the educational criteria was an effort to appease the uneducated population, Congress members held the educational clause as a divisive policy. Congress legislators claimed that the educational clause had led several people to furnish fake documents and this landed them in legal complication. 

“Education cannot be a base to divide the people in categories of educated and uneducated. It’s for inclusive development that our government has decided in favour of equal opportunities for all,” said Panchayati Raj minister, Sachin Pilot. 

Responding to the debate on amendment in the Panchayati Raj act, Pilot said that the compulsion for education rightly should have been implemented first in parliament and assembly elections. The provisions that got abolished in the amendments had established that any person contesting municipality election should have cleared secondary board examination from recognized board. Similarly, the Sarpanch in non-scheduled area should have at least cleared class eight, while those in scheduled area were expected to have qualification of ‘Class-V pass’.

By Voice Vote

The amendments were passed with voice vote even as BJP legislators in opposition registered their protest against the move as a step back from development. BJP government had introduced educational criteria.