VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, April 21: Women from Bihar belonging to the reserved category who are married in Jharkhand have been facing a unique problem this panchayat election, especially such women who want to contest the election. Their caste certificate issued by the Bihar government is not accepted by the returning officer.
Raising the concern of such women, the Congress’ Mahagama MLA Dipika Pandey Singh shot off a letter to Jharkhand State Election Commission to look into the issue.
“The election process has started. Panchayat poll is a festival of women empowerment. But sadly, a large number of women are in a disadvantageous position because of the discrepancies in reservation rules,” she said.
Godda shares a border with Bihar. She said that there are women from Bihar who are married in Godda. She said that problems started for such women of the reserved category who want to contest the election.
“Problem is that the returning officer is not accepting the caste certificate issued by the Bihar government whereas the caste-based reservation is effective in both the states. A large number of women came to me and complained that when they filed their nomination papers for reserved seats, their papers were not accepted. They were told that they can’t avail the benefit of reservation. The caste certificate issued from Bihar is not accepted,” she said.
She said that the process for the first and the second phase started on April 16 and April 20. If the problem is not sorted out it will deprive a large number of women of contesting elections, she said.
Godda has a total of nine blocks and the trend of the nomination for the post of Gram Panchayat member, mukhiya, panchayat Samiti member, and Zila Parishad reflects that women have outnumbered their male counterparts.
On being contacted a senior official of Godda district administration said that the state election commission issued detailed guidelines under which the nomination process was undertaken.
The Secretary of the State Election Commission Radhe Shyam Prasad said that the reservation policy was not framed by the commission. “We have come to know about the issue raised by the MLA. But this matter is related to the department of personnel that notifies a caste under the backward and scheduled category,” she said.
