Our Correspondent
If you want to contest elections in Haryana, you must be a matriculate and have a functional toilet at home. Haryana Assembly has passed a bill, fixing matriculation as minimum educational qualification for elections to Panchayati Raj institutions.
The bill also laid down other conditions including making it mandatory for the candidates to have functional toilets. The Assembly on the concluding day of its Monsoon session passed the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2015 after debating it for over an hour, amid a walkout by the Congress while main opposition INLD also raised concern on some points concerning the amendment.
The bill fixes, matriculation as essential qualification for general candidates contesting the Panchayat elections while the qualification for the women (general) and Scheduled caste candidate will be middle standard or class 8th. Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar moved the bill and termed it as historic, saying it was as important as the Cow Protection Act enacted earlier this year.
The House was informed that Haryana has become the second state after Rajasthan to fix educational and other qualifications for the candidates contesting Panchayat elections.