NRI Offers Rs 50L, Half Acre Land For Sarpanch Post

The faceoff between State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy heated up the political atmosphere even before the schedule of the panchayat polls was released in Andhra Pradesh.

While the YCP is trying its best to make a majority of the elections unanimous, the TDP too is trying to prove that it is no less to the ruling party and chalking out plans accordingly. The TDP is trying to secure maximum number of sarpanch posts and prove that there is opposition against the YCP among the people which is even leading to clashes between the TDP and YCP.

In the last few days, there has been a lot of political activity in the villages and in some places, the sarpanch posts were put up for auction too. In a few villages, the maximum bid for the sarpanch post touched Rs 20 lakh. Following the same trend, an NRI made a bumper offer of Rs 50 lakh for the development of the village if the sarpanch post was left for their family.

Dondeti Marreddy, working as a software engineer in America, belongs to Tallacheruvu in Acchampet mandal, Guntur district. He got several development works done and also organised some social service programmes in the village. He also donated towards the education of poor students.

Now, he wants to make one of his family members the sarpanch of the village and contacted the village elders through a video call. He told them that he would give Rs 50 lakh for the development of the village if one of his family members was nominated as the sarpanch. This apart, he also promised to give half an acre of land for the development of the village. He said he would get a function hall constructed in the village and also take steps to get sanctioned a lift irrigation scheme to tackle the drinking water problem in the village.

At the same time, Marreddy also said he would give Rs 10 lakh donation to the village if somebody else, other than his family members, was made the sarpanch.

Will such involvement of the wealthy people in the panchayat polls ring in a new era of development in villages has to be watched in the next few years.