BENGALURU
Around 6,000 Panchayat offices in the state will be named after Mahatma Gandhi. This is the decision of the Congress party, said Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.
Shivakumar, who is also the KPCC President, spoke at the Raj Bhavan Chalo Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Bachao Sangram protest programme held at Freedom Park on Tuesday.
KPCC Vice President Ugrappa and KPCC office bearers have written to us regarding this issue. A request has been made to the Chief Minister regarding this. Through this, work will be done to perpetuate the name of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji’s resolve was that there should be a school, a cooperative society and a panchayat in every village, he said.
We are fighting for the right to employment of the poor. It was the Manmohan Singh government led by Sonia Gandhi that provided employment to the unemployed. The world had noticed our employment guarantee scheme. The World Bank had praised this scheme in 2013 as a very excellent scheme. There are 5700 panchayats and every year Rs 6 thousand crores were spent on this scheme in our state, he said.
Previously, panchayats used to decide what work and development work should be undertaken. Union Minister CP Joshi, on the direction of Sonia Gandhi, had formulated this scheme to give those who were reluctant to go to work on other people’s land the opportunity to work on their own land and earn wages. Such a historic decision was taken by the UPA government. Wages were given for construction of shelter homes, Indira Awaz homes, cattle sheds, and agricultural-related work, he explained.
The central government is taking away the rights of farmers and workers and the power of the panchayats. Our fight is against this. In the coming days, a 5 km walk will be taken out at the taluk level, including NREGA workers, in every panchayat. This walk should be led by the district in-charge minister, MLAs and council members, he said.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, they have changed the Raj Bhavan to Lok Bhavan without asking us. I call it Raj Bhavan, we will go to Raj Bhavan. There is a court order, not everyone can go. We will go by bus, he said.
State Congress in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, Ministers MB Patil, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Dinesh Gundurao, Chaluvarayaswamy, Bosaraju, former Deputy Chief Minister Lakshman Savadi, MLC BK Hariprasad participated.
