The next Local Government election will be held next year. Residents of Papaling village in Chhukha remain concerned about their unique administrative arrangement. The issue was raised again during the recent Dzongkhag Tshogdu, where local leaders cited several instances of issues tabled in the Tshogdu receiving little or no follow-up from the relevant agencies.
This is Papaling village in Dungna gewog with about one hundred residents. And during local government elections, people vote for the leaders of Dungna Gewog.
However, residents here have their census in neighbouring Maedtekha gewog and deal with the gewog for any official purposes.
The inconvenience has been raised in several Dzongkhag Tshogdu sessions, including this one recently.
Maedtekha Gup Passang Tshering said,“If the Election Commission can make the people of Papaling vote for the local leaders of Maedtekha, they can ask us to identify a chiwog for the village, and we will do it immediately. If that cannot be done and demarcation is an issue, then the census and other registrations can be changed to Dungna. There is nothing complicated. This only shows that the relevant agencies are not doing their job. They can simply sit together and resolve the issue.”
“Our solution is that if their census and other registrations cannot be changed, we will do mobile voting there. They may not get a separate polling station, but we will go to their village, house by house and get their votes,” said Norbu Wangdi, the chief electoral officer of Chhukha.
This is one of several issues that remain unaddressed despite being raised during previous Dzongkhag Tshogdu meetings. Local leaders are calling for stronger follow-up on decisions taken in the meeting. They said that if issues continue to be left unattended despite being raised in the highest decision-making body at the dzongkhag level, the Dzongkhag Tshogdu would serve little purpose.
The Maedtekha Gup said, “We do not know whether the Tshogdu has not been able to follow up on these issues or whether the relevant offices are not willing to intervene. If that is the case, we need to discuss what can be done and identify a way forward.”
“The issue was tabled in the past session as well, and we decided to write to the Election Commission of Bhutan, which we did. But we have not received any reply from the commission to date. During the discussion, our election officer was also here, where he said they would be doing a delimitation review in which the issue might be looked at. However, we have not received any response,” said Kinley Dorji, the deputy chairperson of the Dzongkhag Tshogdu.
The Dzongda said election officials had assured him that the matter would be resolved before the upcoming Local Government election.
Another issue that has repeatedly been raised during the Dzongkhag Tshogdu over the past few years is the poor condition of the road connecting Ganglakha to Dungna and Maedtekha.
Dungna Gup Lobzang said, “The need for Ganglakha to Dungna road improvement was raised in the 8th session. Besides having the challenges discussed widely, there has been no clear response. It was raised in the 7th session as well. Now, it’s the 9th session, and it is still unclear.”
They called for relevant officials to be present during the sittings and stressed the need for timely responses.
Kinley Dem, Chhukha
Edited by Tandin Phuntsho
