Sarpanch candidates appear for entrance tests' in Odisha village ahead of rural polls
Rourkela(PTI): Days ahead of the three-tier panchayat polls in Odisha, residents of a tribal-dominated village in Sundergarh district reportedly organised oral and written entrance tests for all the sarpanch candidates to boost their confidence.
The contestants said the exercise was conducted by the villagers of Malupada under Kutra Gram Panchayat in the district, where polling is scheduled to be held in the second phase on February 18.
All the nine aspirants were invited to a public meeting at a local school campus on Thursday, where they were told about the tests, a sarpanch candidate said.
Eight contestants for the sarpanch post turned up at the meeting and sat for the entrance examination that continued till 8 pm, he said.
Some of the test questions were the reasons for contesting the polls, five goals as a sarpanch aspirant, details of involvement in welfare activities, and information about villages and wards in the gram panchayat, another candidate said.
The results will be declared on February 17, he added.
When contacted, Block Development Officer-cum-Block Election Officer, Rabinda Sethi, said: There is no official provision for this. I have heard about it, but nobody has lodged any formal complaint yet. If the matter comes up to me, we shall inquire.
Over 2.79 crore voters are eligible to cast votes in the panchayat polls that will be held in five phases between February 16 and February 24. The counting of votes will take place from February 26-28.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
