In its first Cabinet meeting since taking over, the Congress government in Rajasthan has decided to remove the condition of minimum qualification required to contest civic elections.

The previous BJP government in the state had made it mandatory for people contesting zila parishad, panchayat samiti and municipal elections to have passed Class 10, those contesting sarpanch elections to have passed Class 8 and those standing for sarpanch elections in panchayats in scheduled areas to have cleared Class 5.

Government has decided to remove the condition of mandatory qualification for contesting in local body or Panchayati Raj elections. In a democracy, whether a person is literate or illiterate, can’t stop him from contesting Assembly elections, have no right to stop him/ her from contesting local body or Panchayati Raj polls.”

Removal of the minimum qualification condition was part of the Congress’s manifesto for the just concluded elections.

Criteria for contesting election in local polls :

As per the Rajasthan Panchyat Raj Amendment bill, 2015. Candidates were :

• Required to have passed class x for contesting municipal elections, class viii for contesting panchyat polls for the post of a sarpanch and class x for contesting Zila Parishad or Panchyat Samiti elections.
• Construction of toilets in their homes as mandatory for contesting polls to the Panchyati Raj Institutions in the state.

History :

• Rajasthan came into existence as a result of the process of integration of about two dozen princely states and chief ships in successive stages starting from the inauguration of the Matsya Union (comprising of the former princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur) and culminating with the merger of Sirohi state in the Rajasthan union. Greater Rajasthan with Jaipur as its capital was inaugurated in March 1949. The final stage in the formation of the present state of Rajasthan was completed in 1956 with the merger of the Part-C state of Ajmer and parts of Bombay and Madhya Pradesh into Rajasthan as a result of the recommendations of the State’s Reorganization Commission, giving the state its present geographical and political identity.
• In 1953, the Rajasthan Panchayat Act was enacted and village Panchayats were established throughout the state.
• Rajasthan has the distinction of being a pioneer in accepting the scheme of democratic decentralization envisaging a three-tier system of representative bodies at the village, block, and district levels. Th e system later came to be known as Panchayati Raj, which was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on 2 October 1959 at Nagour in Rajasthan.
• The first elections under the Rajasthan Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads Act, 1959 were held in September-October 1959. With the already existing Panchayats at the village level under the Rajasthan Panchayat Act, 1953, the three-tier scheme of Panchayati Raj began functioning on 2 October 1959.