Fatehabad, Nov 5 (PTI) Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday alleged that the panchayat e-tendering system was the "mother of corruption" in Haryana and said it will be scrapped if the party comes to power in the 2024 assembly elections.

Attacking the BJP-JJP government in the state, he also said that "it does not believe in democratic institutions and wants to hand over everything to contractors".

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Earlier this year, many sarpanches had protested against the e-tendering system for development works in rural areas, claiming it would curtail their spending powers.

"The e-tendering system, which hands over panchayats to contractors and is the mother of corruption, will be abolished when the Congress government is formed in the state," the former chief minister said while addressing a 'Panchayati Raj Bachao Adhikar Rally'.

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The rally was called by some sarpanches of the state in Tohana here, and Hooda, who was the chief guest, said the provisions of "'Right to Recall' in panchayati raj will also be withdrawn so that the independence of panchayats can be ensured."

Three years ago, Haryana had passed a law which allows the recall of village sarpanches and members of the block-level panchayat samitis and district-level zila parishads if they fail to perform.

Besides protesting the e-tendering system, sarpanches had also demonstrated against the 'Right to Recall' policy.

The Haryana government has maintained that the e-tendering system will bring transparency, ensure quality in development works and also ensure their completion in a time-bound manner.

Congress leader Hooda said that gram panchayats are the real government. "Mahatma Gandhi had envisioned 'gram swaraj', which was implemented by the Congress. I was present in the Lok Sabha as an MP when the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution were made," he said, according to a statement.

"In this amendment, a provision was made to give full power to panchayats. But the BJP-JJP worked to curtail these rights by implementing systems like e-tendering, interference of MLAs and 'Right to Recall'. If the government wants to bring 'Right to Recall', then it should first be implemented on MLAs and MPs," he said.

"The BJP-JJP does not believe in democratic institutions and want to handover everything to contractors, so that they can loot public money with both hands and they don't have to answer to anyone. The truth is that the work that elected panchayats can do for the development of villages cannot be done by any contractor or officer," he said, opposing the e-tendering system.

Under the previous Congress government, Haryana took a new flight of development and became the number one state in the country on every parameter, including per capita income, per capita investment, employment generation and development, Hooda claimed.

"But today, the BJP-JJP has taken Haryana to the first position in terms of unemployment, crime, drugs and poverty," he said.

Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan said that "the Congress gave panchayati raj, but the present government took away the powers given to panchayats".

"This government fooled the people of the state by delaying the elections to panchayats and then started abusing the rights of panchayats. During the Congress' tenure, panchayats had the right to get work done up to Rs 20 lakh, but this government limited it to Rs 2 lakh. Not only this, when they protested, sarpanches were lathicharged," he said.

Bhan claimed that various sections, including the villagers and farmers, have made up their mind to oust this government from power.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)