Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Penalise poll-dodging villages: panel

By Our Special Correspondent

Chennai May 19. The National SC/ST Commission has asked the State Government to "withdraw all facilities" and funds for and "penalise'' four reserved villages in southern Tamil Nadu, where panchayat elections have not been held for a few years now due to alleged upper caste intimidation.

Concerned at the administration's inability to hold the polls, the Commission Chairman, Bizay Sonkar Shastri, who was in the city today, also instructed the Chief Secretary, Lakshmi Pranesh, to immediately depute a team of "capable" officials, MLAs and public representatives to the villages and create an atmosphere conducive to conducting the exercise.

"Such a discrimination should not be allowed to continue in this modern age,'' Mr. Shastri asserted, in an interaction with the media, after discussions with the Chief Secretary and other senior officials.

Mr. Shastri said the Chief Secretary had agreed to take the "needful steps" to ensure the conduct of elections at Pappapatti, Keeripatti and Nattarmangalam in Madurai district and at Kottakatchiendal in Virudhunagar district. "If the team is not able to convince the villagers, I myself will visit the panchayats to ensure the conduct of elections," he asserted.

In all the four panchayats, Dalits are in a minority and the majority upper caste is refusing to accept a Dalit president. While no elections could be held at Kottakatchiendal in the last eight years, at Pappapatti and Keeripatti, barring once, no Dalit came forward to file the nomination, fearing reprisal. At Nattarmangalam, elections could not be held for the last two years, because no Dalit dared to contest.

To a question, Mr. Shastri said the State Government proposal to bring tribal residential schools and Adi Dravidar schools under the Education department could be dropped now, though he was not in favour of creating an `island' of Dalits. However, he said, the State's allocation of funds under the Special Component Plan and the tribal sub-plan and implementation of welfare projects for SC/ST were "satisfactory".

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