From News Dispaches CHANDIGARH: The Haryana Chief Minister Devi Lal, has suggested that the proposal to fund the municipal committees directly from the Centre be left for the consideration of the new Lok Sabha due to be constituted by the people of India.
In his reply to the Prime Minister’s invitation to him to attend the conference of Chief Ministers at New Delhi Devi Lal said Gandhi was attempting a gross violation of the spirit of parliamentary democracy by rushing an amendment at the far end of the current tenure of the present Lok Sabha.
Describing Gandhi’s concept of decentralization as a “wholly ill-conceived and indeed mischievous” one, Devi Lal expressed the apprehension that Gandhi was trying to introduce a “guided democracy” of the Field Marshal Ayub Khan type.
In the reply which was released to the press here, Devi Lal said that as an old freedom fighter with a 60 year record of struggle and service of grass root democracy and public welfare, he has not ben able to persuade himself and his government to associate themselves with any forum such as the Chief Minister’s conference, “whose avowed agenda of work is to dilute our constitution and to erode parliamentary democracy in our country.
Devi Lal has pointed that the Constitution does not stand in the way of building effective and resourceful institutions for self-governance. What is required is greater revolution of resources through the Finance Commission and under Article 282 of the Constitution, he has added.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 4, 1989
