The Mandya district administration held the panchayat development officer of Keragodu responsible for the tension in the village over hoisting of Lord Hanuman flag.
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MANDYA: The State Election Commission’s condition banning contractors from contesting the gram panchayat elections can hardly be effective. The contractors are working around the condition by fielding their relatives as their proxies.
The SEC has banned the candidature of contractors if they have construction contracts/ agreements with the GPs concerned. This is to stop the elected contractors from illegally benefiting from their membership as they can do sub-standard construction works and influence/ manipulate the panchayats’ machinery.
According to sources, nearly half of the elected village panchayat members have been contractors. After their election, there have been rampant corruption in contract-related works as they can tweak the rule book, which says: “the Karnataka Grama Swaraj and Panchayat Raj Act (1993), section 12 (h) disqualified a person if he has directly and indirectly any share or interest in any work done by order of grama panchayat”.