Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala on Monday slammed the LDF government for tabling the Kerala Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in the Assembly.
Mr. Chennithala said the government had ignored cautionary reports from various quarters, including the Opposition, about amending certain sections of the law on the ground that they ran against the grain of the Central law concerned.
The Opposition had said that Section 6 and Subsection 3 of the law would not stand legal scrutiny.
Now the government has realised its folly and introduced a Bill to cover its tracks.
The government had amended Section 6(3) of the Act to increase the number of local self-government representatives based on the 2011 Census.
It ran against the central law that administrative boundaries should not be changed in the one-year run-up to a new census. The Census Registrar General had cautioned the Chief Secretary about the provision.
However, the government had mindlessly muscled the erroneous amendment through the Assembly and had to retract it now.
