No approval, so Aiyar shelves plan for rally

Union Minister for Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar’s grandiose plans to organise a rally of 2.5 lakh sarpanches...

Union Minister for Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar’s grandiose plans to organise a rally of 2.5 lakh sarpanches, drawn from across the country, on December 22 and 23 in New Delhi to commemorate the completion of 15 years of Panchayati Raj system, hit a roadblock on Thursday with no approval coming from the Union Cabinet for the purpose.

In fact, the Panchayati Raj Ministry had received six bids, including from public sector organisations like Balmer Lawrie, ITDC and DTTDC, for the tender it had floated for the rally almost a week before the issue was slated for the Cabinet’s consideration.

The “Convention of Presidents of Zilla Parishads and Panchayats and Rally of Sarpanches” was supposed to be addressed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Aiyar has been pushing for this rally on these dates despite the reluctance of the Delhi Government in inviting such a huge crowd for an official function.

However, when asked about it, Aiyar told The Indian Express: “I withdrew the Cabinet proposal seeking approval for organising the rally as we thought that extreme weather conditions around the scheduled dates at the end of December will not be conducive to such a programme.”

But what is more bizzare was that even the government issued a press release on its website on Friday, a day after the cabinet meeting, declaring that the Cabinet has approved its plans and also sanctioned an amount of Rs 71.83 crore for organising the event. However, the release had to be withdrawan later in the day after it became clear that the Cabinet did not even take up the issue.

According to Aiyar, it has now been decided to hold the rally on April 24, 2008, which the ministry will also celebrate as Panchayati Raj Day.