|
|
Patna,(BiharTimes): A couple of months after the Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, asked his party leader of Chhapra, Ajay Singh, to marry a girl and then subsequently gave the newly-wed bride a ticket for Dharaunda Assembly seat the Bihar government has ordered the arrest of men who are busy in rule by proxy at the grassroots level of democracy. |
Now all the Mukhiya Pati, Sarpanch Pati and Pramukh Pati would be arrested and despatched to jail if they attend any meeting in place of their wives or along with them.
As the state government had over five years back increased women’s reservation in urban and rural local bodies from 33 to 50 per cent in an overwhelming number of cases it is men and not women who still call the shots. It is the husbands who attend the meeting in place of the elected female representatives.
State’s Rural Works Minister Bhim Singh said that the state government had ordered arrest of all those husbands who attend official meetings on behalf of their elected wives. This would help the government check the rule by proxy at the local level.
A by-product of the empowerment of women in Bihar is that a large number of female elected representatives are becoming widow as many Mukhiya Pati, Sarpanch Pati and Pramukh Pati were killed during the last summer election and even after that.
In all 130,500 seats in local bodies in Bihar are now held by women.
But there is resentment at the grassroots level too. “Why is it that the state government not practizing this rule in Assembly and Parliament. Tickets are being given to totally novice woman after the death of husband or if the husband is legally not eligible for the post as in the case of Ajay Singh,” it is being asked. Ajay has several criminal cases pending against him.
But then there is a difference. Unlike in case of panchayat husbands can not enter the Assembly or Parliament though the rule by proxy is very much in practice in these cases too.
comments...
| 
