Dahod dist panchayat head election deferred again, Cong

Election to Dahod district panchayat president post was today deferred indefinitely by the administration due to "chaos" during the process, even as the Congress alleged that police and administration was "indirectly" supporting the BJP.
In the last month's Dahod district panchayat polls, Congress had won 26 and BJP got 24 seats.
"Yesterday, BJP members hurled abuse at us, threw chairs when we had gathered for the election. They claimed some of the elected members of Congress belonged to them. When we remained seated and did not react, all of them left and torched our bus," said Sushila Moda, elected from Kharoda.

Police and the administration indirectly supported BJP members, at the behest of the state government, in the ruling party's bid to seize control of the panchayat body, she said.
The election was to be held yesterday at the collector's office in Dahod, but it was postponed till today after the Congress and BJP members got into a spat, followed by arson and stone-pelting. Police fired teargas shells as unidentified men torched three vehicles, including a bus, which had brought the Congress members to the venue.
But the election was postponed today too.

All the 26 Congress members arrived at party's headquarters in the Ahmedabd today in the 'Vajra' bus provided by the state police for security reasons.

The members alleged at a press conference here that BJP members were trying every trick in the book to capture the district panchayat though Congress had won a majority.
"Yesterday, BJP members hurled abuse at us, threw chairs when we had gathered for the election. They claimed some of the elected members of Congress belonged to them. When we remained seated and did not react, all of them left and torched our bus," said Sushila Moda, elected from Kharoda.
Police and the administration indirectly supported BJP members, at the behest of the state government, in the ruling party's bid to seize control of the panchayat body, she said.

"All our belongings in the bus got burnt. All the 26 members including women spent the whole night in the office as the collector deferred the election till today. But BJP members once again resorted to same tactics and left the venue without participating in the election," alleged Moda.
Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki said a
"jungle raj" was prevailing in the state.
"BJP leaders used to claim that Gujarat is very peaceful. They used to claim that jungle raj prevails in states like Bihar. Now looking at this incident where BJP is trying all the unethical means to acquire power, it seems a jungle raj prevails only in Gujarat," he said.

"Though our Chief Minister is a woman, it is unfortunate that even the elected women representatives are not safe. Our members were fortunate that they were not in that bus, otherwise BJP people would have set them afire along with the bus," the Congress leader said.
He condemned the Dahod collector's decision and demanded that government immediately conduct election "to save the panchayati raj institution in the state".
"We have made several representations to the State Election Commission as well as senior officials in Gandhinagar. If solution does not arrive soon, we will approach the High Court as we are seeing direct involvement of BJP government in this," added Solanki.

However, the collector M A Gandhi told