The latest surrender to the IUML’s pressure is in the Government’s decision to appeal against the Kerala High Court’s twin verdicts, within the space of 10 days, setting aside the formation of new gram panchayats and bifurcating the Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode corporations.

The High Court’s verdict has come as a huge setback to the Chandy Government, which had ordered delimitation of wards in the Malabar region and bifurcation of the two corporations to suit the electoral interests of its powerful ally, the IUML.

The Court verdict vindicates the charge made by the Opposition Left Democratic Front(LDF) that the Government had taken the decision to help the IUML to boost its prospects in the upcoming local bodies elections due in October this year.

What has made the discomfiture of the Government more acute is the State Election Commission’s recommendation that elections should be held as per the 2010 delimitation status, and its ‘threat’ to move court to ensure ‘conditions that would enable it to discharge its constitutional duty of holding elections on time’, in this case in October this year. As per the constitutional requirements, the new local bodies should be in place in November.

The IUML contends – a weak contention at that - that the delimitation of wards would help the Congress as well. The fact, however, is that it will help only the IUML, especially in the Malabar region. Hence its insistence on appealing against the HC order.

The Government has once again adopted the policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound in this case. On the one hand, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy says there was no question of postponing the polls. In the same breath, he asserts that the Government is unable to go by the delimited pattern of wards or maintain the status quo.

The CM gives the game away with his assertion that it would not do to offend the IUML leadership on this sensitive issue. Hence the move to challenge the single bench’s verdict in the matter.

The Opposition, however, counters the Chief Minister’s stance with the argument that, if the CM and his government was really sincere about holding the local bodies elections on time, they should not have gone in appeal against the HC order, and resisted the IUML pressure. That it has not had the courage to do that is self-explanatory, contend the CPI(M) leaders. The LDF has also made it clear that the front would legally challenge the decision to defer the elections.

In its verdict, the HC has come down heavily on the practice of dividing villages for the sake of vote-bank politics. The order says that a village cannot be bifurcated and its parts joined with different panchayats. Hence its decision to quash the orders issued by the UDF Government in April for the creation of new panchayats by carving out parts of 84 villages.

The court also refers to section 4 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, saying that the legislation never envisages a panchayat for a part of the village. It envisages the constitution of a panchayat only for a village or group of villages. The area of an existing panchayat can be decreased or increased only by adding or excluding a village or group of villages.

In the instant cases, portions of the villages have been carved out to form the newly formed panchayats, the judgment said. Also, a prior notification by the Governor is a must for the formation of a village for being considered under Part IX of the Constitution, which relates to the panchayats. (IPA Service)