Kharagpur: State panchayat minister Dilip Ghosh said on Sunday that panchayat representatives remaining absent from duties would be pelted with bricks if they continue to remain inactive, triggering a controversy.“I will be forced to do everything in my capacity if necessary. I will send police to their homes, and if they still don’t turn up, I will organise a blockade of their homes. Bricks will be thrown at them. It would be better if they come into office on their own,” Ghosh said in Kharagpur.The minister’s comments come days after CM Suvendu Adhikari directed govt officials to lodge complaints against absentee public representatives and panchayat and panchayat samiti offices.According to Ghosh, nearly 2,000 panchayat pradhans are inactive. “They have either absconded or are not coming into office. Because of them, govt projects are running into trouble and common people are not receiving services,” he said.“They (panchayat representatives) cannot run away. They are paid salaries and it is their duty to serve the people,” added Ghosh.Opposition politicians criticised the comments. Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee said: “It’s not that panchayat pradhans aren’t going to office — they are being prevented from going to work by BJP workers and police. If they go, police arrest them on false cases.”CPM MLA Mustafijur Rahaman said comments such as these only worsen law and order. “They can take legal action, dissolve panchayat samitis and appoint administrators. But such comments are not expected from a minister,” he said.Congress’s Bengal unit spokesperson Suman Roychowdhury said: “Ghosh seems to have forgotten that he holds a constitutional post and that he is no longer an RSS karyakarta. A minister should not instigate people to take law into their own hands.”Sources said Ghosh had flagged the issue of absentee panchayat representatives to the Centre when he travelled to Delhi recently. He had informed the Centre that there are 11,000 vacancies at the panchayat level and that nearly 2,000 panchayat chiefs, deputy chiefs and staff had stopped coming into work after the elections.Centre assured Ghosh that Union panchayat secretary Vivek Bharadwaj would visit the state at the end of July to assess the situation if necessary, sources added.
