Team News Riveting
Patna, March 7
Well-known women lawyer of Patna High Court Mrs Chhaya Mishra on Sunday demanded the State Election Commission, Chief Election Officer and state government to take effective steps to prevent proxy leadership in the elected bodies in panchayati raj system and different urban bodies.
In a statement on the eve of the International Women’s Day, Mrs Mishra, a former joint secretary of Advocates Association, said experiences of the functioning of the different stages of panchayati raj system and urban bodies at lower levels prove though women have been given 50 per cent reservations, still they are not the actual masters in the panchayati raj system or nagar panchayats. She said the husbands of the elected mukhiyas, panchas or sarpanches are the leaders by proxy and get their wives elected only to strengthen their economic, social and political powers.
There should be an effective check on the misuse and abuse of the system, she demanded and suggested the returning officers of the panchayati raj institutions should take an affidavit/declaration from the women candidates that they would be disqualified if their husbands were found working on their behalf.
Mrs Chhaya Mishra also demanded the state government to empower women in the execution of different schemes at the grass root level and they and their committees should be entrusted with the task of monitoring both construction and maintenance of the Jal, Jeevan, Haryali schemes.
Mrs Chhaya Mishra said the state was empowered under the Constitution to adopt positive discrimination measures in favour of women and welcomed steps to bring legislations against dowry marriages, child marriages, domestic violence, harassment at work places. But more important was extending socio-political and ecominc empowerment measures for women as irrespective of caste, creed or class, still they are facing problems of inequality.
She requested the state government to constitute the State Women Commission immediately as the term of the members have either expired or some members have resigned. The government should be cautious in not obliging the women leaders with their ;political affiliations to the ruling parties only,Mrs Chhaya Mishra said.
Mrs Chhaya Mishra who had worked for the cause of women in courts and outside recommended creation of a separate and exclusive association of lawyers as done in Tamil Nadu, where the women advocates’ association was effectively protecting the interests of the women. In Bihar too, she said brother lawyers should extend positive co-operation to their women members in professional excellence. Setting up of a separate women association of lawyers would help the women members in the profession, she said.
